|
|
Budget Web Hosting - Are They All Created Equal?
Choosing a budget web hosting company can be overwhelming. In fact, choosing any web hosting company can be a challenge due, in large part, to the fact that there are so many of them. Do a search for "web hosting" with the quotes around the keywords on Google, and it'll return over 5 million documents! That doesn't mean there are 5 million web hosting providers but there very well could be at least 1 million! That's a lot of web hosts. How can you choose one that meets your need?
What is Budget web hosting anyway?
Budget web hosting is generally defined as any hosting service that is below $10 per month. The budget comes from the low price. Now, most companies in the budget web hosting category only offer one year plans. Most budget web hosting companies however, will quote you the monthly fee you would pay if you divided the annual fee by 12 months. Keep that in mind when you are comparing one company with another. The other thing to look out for is the setup fee. Do they charge you a setup fee to get started?
Evaluate your general impression of the company.
The first place to start evaluating budget web hosting companies is their front page. Does their website give you a sense that they are professional? Is it easy to find all of the information you need? Take a look at their contact information. Do they list a physical address, an email address and a phone number to contact them? If they don't provide any contact details, that has to throw up a red flag. If you run into problems setting up your website, and you have no proper contact information, how are you going to get service from that company?
Do they have a toll free support number?
Does the budget web hosting company provide a toll free number for you to contact them? If they are based in Atlanta, Georgia and you are in Seattle, Washington, you don't want to be paying long distance to them if you need to get them on the phone about a concern you have. A toll free number also speaks to their willingness to deal openly and honestly with their customers.
What kind of guarantee do they offer?
Choose a budget web hosting company that offers a good guarantee. Most budget web hosting companies don't openly publish their satisfaction guarantees. If you have to look in their terms and services agreement to find out where they stand with regard to giving you back your money if you are not satisfied, you should look elsewhere.
What is the uptime guarantee of the site in question?
Uptime guarantee refers to the amount of time the server is live and serving your web pages. An uptime guarantee of 99% means that the host guarantees that their servers will be up and operational 99% of the time. Over the course of one year, 99% uptime would represent a downtime (the one percent) of around 87 hours in a year or an average of 7 hours per month. An uptime of 99.9% would involve only 8 hours of downtime for the entire year.
What kind of after sale support can you expect?
While there are many other factors you could consider, the final one I will deal with is after sale support. What kind of resources do they make available for you. Find out if the budget web hosting company offers free scripts. Do they have any marketing tools they can make available to you? What kind of support for setting up your account can you expect from the budget web hosting company? All of these factors must be taken into consideration.
Just because a company offers a budget web hosting service, doesn't mean you necessarily have to compromise on features, quality or service. All three will only be found, however, if you make sure to do your homework to find a budget web hosting company that is a good fit for you.
This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a business web hosting company that specializes in helping online business owners increase their website traffic. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely.
Does Your Host Fight Spam?
Virtually anyone with an email address knows what Spam is, and has, perhaps, considered giving up the speed, convenience, and simplicity of email because of it. Those who have their own websites are more vulnerable than the average person with a single work or home email address from their company or Internet Service Provider. Email addresses visible on a website can quickly become Spam magnets, as automated programs, similar in form to search engine spiders, roam the web, looking for addresses to which new broadsides of Spam may be fired. Website hosting companies generally provide their clients email accounts for use with their domain, but are you with a host that provides those email accounts with Spam and virus protection?
Niche Hosting
There is story of David and Goliath where Goliath would come and challenge everybody - "is there anyone amongst you who would dare to fight against me?" Who would dare to fight against him? He was a giant, there was nothing one could do to humble him.
Web Hosting Service ? What you Need to Know to Change Web Hosting Providers
When service at your web hosting company is lacking, or your web site grows in traffic so much that you outgrow your current account, you may find yourself needing to change hosting providers. It can be scary to think about everything you need to do. Here are some things you should keep in mind that will help make the transition to the new host much easier.
Low Cost Web Hosting Services ? Dont Forget About Uptime
Once you have your company's web site up and running, it is vital that you do everything possible to keep it that way. Nothing sets off alarms in a customer's head faster than a non accessible web site or one that has features which do not work. A web site is literally your company's window to the world and every aspect of the site; including the design, content, accessibility, ease of navigation, and uptime, says a lot about your company.
The Domain Name Gold Rush
All the good ones are taken. The really good ones, that is. But they don't always stay taken.
What Is Web Hosting?
The best way to explain this is by comparing it to a real-life (brick & mortar) situation. Picture a web hosting company as the owner of a shopping mall. The shopping mall owner invested a lot of money on hiring architects, constructors, engineers, etc. to build it. Now all the stores on it are empty and the owner is going to rent them to smaller businesses that can't afford (or who simply don't want) their own building.
Web Site Design and Hosting
If you're looking for a professionally designed web site at cheap, bargain basement prices, you may find it as close as your web hosting provider. Many companies that host web sites also offer web design services to their customers at low prices. Some of the best deals to look out for are:
Best Website Hosting is One Thats Reliable
If you are looking for a solid, reliable web host, it's important to look online for recommendations of reliable web hosting companies. There are a few big names in web hosting that you can feel comfortable trusting your hosting to.
Server Uptimes Revealed: The Hidden Cost of Cheap Hosting
We often see server uptime statistics when looking for hosting providers, for example 99.8%, 99%, or 99.99% server uptime guaranteed. Though 99% server uptime may sound good, but is it really and what does it mean?
Advanced Hosting for the Mission Critical Web Presence
As companies that conduct their business online have proliferated, hosting of those websites that provide the primary point of contact for transaction of business has become highly mission critical; having these sites go offline or perform poorly not only loses revenue but also detracts from the company's image and loses customer loyalty.
Website Sitebuilders: Easy to use Website builders Come with a Price
Professional web designers don't come cheap. A good web designer can easily charge you $1000 or more for a five page website. This high cost leads many people to tackle web design for themselves. How hard can it be? Get yourself an HTML editor, throw up a website and voila! Your website is live right? Wrong! There is a lot of knowledge you need to develop before you can get your self made website onto the internet.
Attracting Extra Web Hosting Customers By Targeting Cities, i.e. New York Web Hosting
These searchers are looking for a hosting company in a particular city, state, or country, but given the proper message they can often be convinced to try your hosting company. Afterall, given the nature of the web hosting industry, the actual location of your web hosts is not that important. The datacenter they use and the support team are really the 2 most important items.
Personal Web Hosting ? Free Or Cheap?
After you have spent some time and creativity on designing your personal web site now it's time to publish it on the World Wide Web for all to see it.
How to Achieve # 1 on Free Hosting
A domain name and paid hosting are considered essential for an internet marketer.Majority of the websites that are successful have their own domain name and a paid host.However , is it possible to run a successful website on free hosting ?
How To Choose A Web Host That Meets Your Needs
One of the most difficult choices you have to make when starting an online business is to choose the web host that meets your needs and budget. Throw in the search term "web hosting" into major search engines and you will see what I mean. There are countless web hosting providers out there offering great packages, and you will probably go crazy going through every one of them finding the real deal.
Dedicated Server vs. Co-location Web Hosting
So - you know shared hosting no longer cuts it, and your single office connection is not enough to host a web server - so which is best, leasing a dedicated server or buying your own server and co-locating it someone's data center? Difference For those that are unsure of the difference, here it is in a nutshell. When you co-locate, you are simply renting space within someone else's facility to store your own server or servers. It's like a high tech gym locker that you are renting all or part of to house your servers. You either ship or deliver your server to your provider. Additional services provided with co-location vary from host to host but it certainly won't include the actual server. With a dedicated server you are getting all the features of co-location, plus the actual web server itself. Which is better? While it certainly depends on your particular needs, and there are excellent situations for both the dedicated server option is quickly becoming a better choice in more and more cases. If you already own a web server, or cluster that you prefer to use, then obviously co-location may be your best choice. If you are considering buying new equipment and shipping it off for co-location - please reconsider. The prices and equipment available in dedicated hosting these days are outstanding plus relieve you of the burden of hardware. Most hosts keep identical spare parts on hand for the types of servers used and are quick to react if something fails. Depending on your arrangement with a colocation deal hardware failure could mean paying to have a server shipped back (or you drive to get it), having it fixed yourself then sending it back to the data center. Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting: http://www.vipwh.com http://www.thehostingguide.com
Windows vs Linux : Hosting
The Basics of Linux & Windows :
Free Web Hosting Tips
1. The reliability of the service and their offers.
Web Hosting in 2005 --- Finding the Niche and Cashing in!
Web Hosting in 2005 --- Finding the Niche and Cashing in!
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.