|
|
Why Dedicated Hosting with DeepCyber?
Deep Cyber Net offers virtual private and dedicated servers aside of shared
web hosting.
But if you really have a serious website, and want to run a successful
business - you cannot do it without a dedicated server.
Here is what a Deep Cyber Net web hosting offers you:
Freedom and security
A dedicated server will give you a freedom. You will not need to share it
with other websites. It will also give you additional 3rd party security for
your site and emails. A dedicated server will allow you deep access to your
server to configure and optimize your server anyway you need. You're able to
choose the software to install.
Power and functionality
With a dedicated server you get on average 50-300 Gb of hard drive, plus
about 2,000 Gb of data transfer. You may customize the configuration and
choose any CPU, RAM, or whatever you need. A dedicated server reduces your
dependency on the web host; and bypasses time delays and possible expenses
incurred from these.
Respectability
It's serious...
If your website turned into a popular and reliable resource; if you have
tons of daily visitors; if you work B2B; if you need additional security and
functionality, power and freedom - go ahead and buy a dedicated server.
Don't be sorry about the money you spent! Think about the future...
How to Transfer Your Web Site to a New Web
Hosting Service?
There are various reasons why an online business owner like you has decided
to switch to a new web hosting providers. Your old web hosting provider
probably has very poor technical support, or their web server is always
down, or may be your old web hosting provider cannot meet your hosting
requirements anymore or you could have discovered a cheaper web hosting
service? and so on... Regardless of the reasons, now you have found a new
web hosting service and you need to transfer your website from your current
web host to the new web host. Below is the step-by-step guide that you can
follow in order to achieve a painless and error free of moving to a new web
hosting provider.
Transfer Schedule
Ideally, you should plan the transfer one month before you terminate your
old web hosting plan in order to have sufficient time to perform a smooth
transfer. Doing the transfer in less than one month time frame will put your
website in risk of inaccessible.
New web hosting service registration
Now, sign-up your new web hosting service once you have decided the
termination date mentioned above. Depending on your new web hosting
provider, your new web hosting account usually will be set up within 24
hours.
Files Backup
While waiting for your new web hosting account to be created, it is time to
backup all your web files on the old web hosting provider. In most cases,
you already have all the files of your website on your local computer.
However, it is still a good idea to backup all your files from the old web
server. In addition to the normal HTML files, you may need to backup any
script files, databases files, and even server logs files if it is
necessary. You should create a directory structure that is similar to the
directory structure on your web server and download the files into the
respective directory.
Files uploading
Once you are notified that your new web hosting account has been created,
you will receive a notification email from your new web hosting provider. In
that email, it contains all the information required to set up website, this
including the FTP server information. With that FTP information, you can now
FTP to your new web hosting server and upload all your files. You should
start by first creating the directory structures on the web server, and then
upload all the files to the respective directory.
It is the time to install any script files or databases if there are used in
your website. Likewise, it is a good time to set up all the email accounts
through the administration panel.
Once you have finished uploading all the files and installed the script
files or databases, you can now use the temporary URL to test your site. The
temporary URL can be found in the notification email from your new web
hosting provider. The temporary URL could be in the following format:
http://deepcyber.net/~your-webaccount
Testing
Using the temporary URL directory, you can now test your web site online.
Due to the fact that different web hosting server may require different
server environment to execute. Therefore, you need to verify all the scripts
(such as CGI, Perl) are working accordingly. In addition, you should test
all the hyperlinks in the normal web pages if possible to ensure no broken
links. While you are testing through the temporary URL directory, your
website hosted on the old web hosting provider is continue operating.
Transfer domain name
Once you have finished testing your new website on the temporary URL and
verified it is working perfectly. The next step is to contact your current
domain name registrar (i.e. the company where you register your domain name)
to change the old DNS (Domain Name Server) to point to the new DNS of your
new web hosting provider. Usually, the DNS information is sent to you
through email after you register successful with the new web hosting
provider. Alternatively, you will be able to find the DNS information from
the website of your new hosting provider.
Domain name servers control how a domain name is resolved. Typically, the
domain name servers are in following format:
NS1.YOUR-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COM
NS2.YOUR-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COM
Some domain name registrar requires the IP addresses of the DNS. In this
case you have to provide the IP addresses of your new DNS. For example:
NS1: 123.211.34.54
NS2: 123.231.34.35
Typically, it will take about 24-72 hours to get the DNS record to change
and propagate through all the WHOIS servers. You can use Whois tools on the
Internet such as whois.com to monitor the status of the DNS transfer. Once
the transfer is completed, you will notice the change to your new DNS.
Alternatively, you can make a minor modification to your home page (for
example, adding a new image or symbol) and upload to the new web hosting
server. When you access your home page through the normal domain name (www.your-website.com)
and you notice the new home page, then you are sure that the DNS has been
transferred successfully.
Final Testing
Now, your website on the new web hosting provider is officially transferred
and online. You should repeat all the tests to ensure it is fully
functional. Once you are confirmed the new website is working correctly, you
can go ahead to terminate your old web hosting account.
How to Choose a Right Web Hosting Service?
Indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy
task especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all
offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important
to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting
search. Below are three major criteria for web host seeker:
Web hosting features requirement
This is probably the most important consideration to start finding a host
for your site. You need to decide the technical requirements for your
website, this including:
a) Server platform and hardware requirements
If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as
Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft
Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a web
hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows
2000 servers.
Likewise, if you plan to use programming languages such as Perl, CGI, SSI,
PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix/Linux
platform should be sufficient to meet your hosting requirements. Once you
have these server platform and hardware requirements in mind, you can decide
the best web hosting plans for your need. For more information, you can read
"How to select a web server and server platform?"
b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement
Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before
selecting a web hosting plan, i.e. disk space and bandwidth. If you intend
to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web
pages), then the disk space requirement may not be a big concern to you. In
general, a disk space with 200MB to 500MB should be enough to meet your
hosting requirement. In contrast, if you plan to host a website with
enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, then you should
consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500
MB to 1,000 MB.
Similarly, the bandwidth requirement will depend on your site traffic
estimation. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high traffic will
consume the monthly bandwidth allowance very fast. If so, you will need to
find one web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with 40 GB to 100 GB
per month. Depending upon your website requirement, choosing a web hosting
service that provide sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth is
crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs in the future should you
overuse the monthly disk space and bandwidth allowance.
c) Other hosting features
While the above requirements are utmost important, there are other hosting
features that you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support
video clips on your website, if you have? Is the web hosting service
compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool? Do you plan to
set up a virtual store online? Can the host support the e-commerce features
without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? On top of that, you may
also want to find out the number of email accounts provided, number of FTP
accounts, web statistic software (analyze your web traffic), type of control
panel supported (manage your web hosting account), database and scripting
languages supported and etc.
Reliability and scalability
A first-class web hosting provider offers reliable server uptime and fast
Internet connection. You should only choose a web hosting service that
guarantee at least 99% server uptime with high-speed Internet backbones
using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or
above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A reliable web hosting provider usually
invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with high performance
servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with fail-over redundancy,
backup power generators and firewall software protection in place to ensure
they meet the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.
Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with hardware facilities
that designed for scalability, so that they can grow with your business. For
example, if you need to increase more disk space, bandwidth or number of
mySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as needed without any
problems.
Customer service and support
The last major consideration in choosing a web hosting service is to find a
web hosting providers that offers excellent customer service and support.
You should always search for a web hosting provider that offers 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded with highly experience
technicians, so that any web hosting problems will be resolved within a
reasonable amount of time. You may also want to consider to test how
responsive is their customer support by sending few inquiry emails to the
web hosting provider. In general, any response in less than 24 hours is
considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer support if they take
more than one day to response.
In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support should also
provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free phone support, 24/7
email support, live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive flash tutorials
and FAQ.
Above are few major considerations before you choose your web hosting
service. In addition, how long has the web hosting provider in business and
the number of customers that they currently have are also a good indication
of the quality of their hosting products as well as the stability of the
company. Even though cost of the web hosting service is also important but
it should not be your major consideration. Because the price of a web
hosting service has been declining over the years due to competition, as a
result, the price of most of the web hosting services offering quality
hosting features has been converging to less than US$10 per month. If you
can't afford less than $10 per month, you probably isn't in the online
business for the long haul. Therefore, price should not be a major deciding
factor.
On the other hand, it is more important to ensure the web hosting service
that you choose is able to meet your website hosting requirements, guarantee
your website is always accessible with satisfying speed, provide scalability
to grow and expand your website as well as offer excellent customer supports
A Simple Guide to Web Hosting
Personal Computers, Servers Or ISP?
You need a server to host your site so that it can be viewed over the
internet. This server can either be an Internet Service Provider or of your
own. Most websites are hosted by an Internet Service Provider because they
can provide powerful server hardware, high speed connections and reliable
server support.
Most providers have very fast connections to the Internet such as a full T3
fiber-optic (45 Megabytes per second) connections which is about 1000 high
speed (56 Kilobytes per second) modems combined.
For those who are looking to set up their own servers and host their own
websites, a personal computer is often not powerful enough to do the job. As
the name suggests, a personal computer can hardly handle multiple visitors
to your website- servers are needed to handle these visitors simultaneously.
Getting Your Web Hosting
With the multitude of features and terms in each hosting plan, it can be
puzzling for those who are just starting out. The golden rule in choosing
your website: Nothing beats reliable web hosting. Many web hosting plans
offer more space, more benefits than others. The decision to your web
hosting should be based on reliability. We have seen too many disappointed
website owners who chose benefits and space over reliability.
Web Hosting Data Transfer: How Much Is Too
Much?
Bandwidth in its simplest terms refers to the amount of data that flows
across a network wire in a given time period. For most web hosting
providers, that time period is measured in a month. Web hosting providers
are charged a certain amount per month or per year for an allocated amount
of bandwidth from backbone providers and wholesale data centers. That cost
is then passed on to the consumer in the form of web hosting plans.
How much bandwidth will my website use?
With so much variation among web hosting companies, it can sometimes be
difficult to know how much bandwidth your website will need. So, how much is
a gigabyte of bandwidth anyway? Let's put it in perspective. If an average
web page, images and all is 50 kilobytes in size, your website could be
viewed 20,000 times! For the average hobby website, that is more than
enough. Let's further put that 20,000 in perspective. If each visitor to
your website viewed an average of 4 pages per month, it would still
represent over 5,000 unique visitors to your website every month.
Beware of bandwidth usage when offering file downloads
While offering simple web pages doesn't use up much bandwidth, the same
can't be said about downloading files. If you plan on allowing people to
download music files, pdf files, flash files, or video files, you can eat up
bandwidth in a hurry even with a relatively small number of people visiting
your website. If your website offers an adobe .pdf file that is 1 megabyte
in size, with one gigabyte of bandwidth, you will only be able to serve up
one thousand downloads. This does not including the html needed to get
people to download the pdf in the first place.
Video files eat up even more space. A one megabyte video file represents
only seconds of video. For a half hour presentation, your video file could
easily be over two hundred megabytes in size! At that size, one gigabyte
would only allow you to offer five downloads to your visitors. What you plan
to do with your website most definitely will affect how much monthly
bandwidth you anticipate needing.
Overselling bandwidth is common in the web hosting industry
Because more people use only a fraction of their allotted bandwidth per
month, most web hosting providers price their plans knowing that most people
will only use a fraction of the resources available to them. In fact, with
most companies, if you did use the maximum bandwidth available to you each
month, you would most likely be shut down. If you go with a shared hosting
account, your website can be hosted with hundreds or thousands of other
websites. If your website starts to use a significant portion of the
server's resources, you may find them pulling the plug on your website. If
you know your website is going to need significant resources, you should
probably consider getting yourself a dedicated server.
Knowing what you plan to do will allow you to know how much you need
By knowing what you plan to do with your hosting account, you can have a
pretty good idea of how much bandwidth you're going to need. If you
anticipate that you will be needing to serve lots of multimedia including
video, music and large amounts of flash powered pages, you may need to
consider going with a dedicated server. If your website is just starting out
and you have little money and no real idea of how much bandwidth you're
going to need, pick a company that gives you more than you think you'll need
at a reasonable price. Make sure you also find out how much they will charge
you for any bandwidth you use above and beyond what comes in your hosting
package. If it is one dollar per megabyte and you've already exceeded a
twenty gigabyte bandwidth limit, changes are, you'll get one hefty bill at
the end of the month. When shopping around and looking at bandwidth, keep
the overage cost in mind as well and you'll do fine.
Criteria of Choosing an Ideal Web Hosting
Company
Before we talk about what it takes to be a cheap and good quality web host,
let's get to the fundamental first.
What is a Web Host?
A web host is a service provider that places your web site on a computer
which is connected to the internet. The term for this 'computer' is called a
server.
A web hosting provider will typically have a fast connection to the Internet
and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host
essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your website up on
the world wide web.
With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying the
up-keep of complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance.
That's the whole purpose of the web hosting companies. You should leave the
technical work to web hosting professional while you focus on your own
internet business.
Let's begin...
Feature Offered
The features that web hosting companies are offering are getting quite
standard nowadays.
The followings are some of the common features you'll see in most web
hosting plans:
Control Panel
Control Panel is an interface where you can access your site on the web
server, allowing you to set-up and subsequently update and customize your
web site. Though cPanel is by far the most popular control panel, some
hosting providers customize their own so that they can up-grade and expand
it at will.
Disk space
A vast majority of sites that don't have tons of graphics, sound and video
clips or downloadable files easily fit in 50 MB of disk space. You should
always leave yourself some room for growth or check if the host has a bigger
plan in case you need to upgrade.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transmitted or received through a unit of
time. In web hosting, bandwidth is consumed when visitors make requests for
files on your web site and download them to their personal computers.
Email Account
With POP3 email accounts you can check email from Outlook, Netscape Mail,
Eudora or any other Email software.
Scripting language
As all our top 10 listings are using Unix and Linux platform, php, perl and
CGI are the languages we are talking about here. It is best to choose a host
that supports the latest version to maximize the latest web technologies for
the fee that you pay.
Database
If your web site is going to store a lot of data that should be dynamically
accessible (like user accounts, stock prices, maps, Interactive news,
message boards and forum etc.), you'll need to look for an account that
offers a database. MySQL is a powerful and most popular database program
that runs on the Linux operation system. It is able to handle million of
entries all at once. Its flexibility and speed allow you to also store logs
and pictures. MySQL is designed to scale well under heavy traffic conditions
and is ideal for database-intensive or e-commerce-enabled Web sites.
Customer Service/Support
No matter if you are an expert or a novice in web hosting, you need a web
host with good customer support system. What is the criteria of an excellent
customer support? Let us explain.
How big is the knowledge base?
This is particularly important for those who want to search for quick answer
without seeking direct assistance from customer support staff. Due to the
huge database, normally it's searchable. Some web hosting providers will
even make your life easier by making a video tutorial guiding you step by
step in setting up your new account. Very useful for beginner.
Responsive customer service staff.
If you are too lazy to find the answer out of a big pool of database, get
the direct answer from someone who knows it. Direct customer support comes
in a few forms.
a. Email support
b. Phone support: Normally, sales and technical support uses separate phone
line. A good phone support staff knows what your problem is and answers with
relevance.
c. Web Host like DeepCyebr.net and HostTerminus.com even have live chat
support with a responsive staff.
Price to Disk Space / Price to Bandwidth Ratio
Are you paying too much for your Web Hosting Plan?
Having done the research on hundreds of web hosting companies, in general,
we've come to this conclusion: the more disk space and bandwidth you are
getting, the more expensive is the monthly price.
Popularity
A web host might have the best feature offered, unbeatable customer support
and reliability in place but without an effective marketing plan, it will go
bust too. Let's face it. If a web hosting provider does not have sufficient
members and steady growth of new members, it's very difficult to survive in
this highly competitive industry.
Reliability, Speed and Uptime Guarantee
Nothing can hurt you more than this: your visitors come to your web site
only to find that it's not accessible. You lose credibility and possibly
even a sale. If your web host does not guarantee at least a 98% uptime,
leave the web host now!
To ensure maximum uptime, installation of redundant back-up systems is
essential. Each web host has their own management systems to minimize
downtime. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get
interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over.
As for speed, even though routing, web server set up and local area networks
play a part in determining the speed of a site, the main concern of how fast
your site is depends very much on the types of network connections.
Many hosting providers still connect to the Internet through T1, or T3
connections. This is not the case with us- we are using OC (Optical Carrier)
lines.
A T1 line will offer data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second),
while a T3 line can supply data transfer rates of 43Mbps. OC-1 refers to a
circuit that transmits 51.85Mbps. Higher levels are multiples of that speed.
Ultra-High Speed OC3 and OC12 lines offers 155Mbps and 622Mbps respectively.
Some hosting providers have connections to major internet backbones at the
speed of OC48 (2488Mbps) and OC96 (4976Mbps).
Web Hosting: Which Is The Host With The
Most?
So you want to publish a web site do you? Welcome to the club. These days it
seems that almost everyone has a web site of some kind, and thousands more
continue to be launched every day. It's challenging enough to design a site
and fill it with interesting content, but when all is said and done another
challenge still remains - where to host it?
A popular choice for newbie webmasters, and even experienced ones, is to
secure a free hosting plan with a company such as Yahoo! Geocities etc.
While these are easy to setup and free of charge, they do have limitations.
Most free hosts don't offer all the nice features that paid hosts do such as
FTP access, CGI-BIN, or your own personal domain name. Instead you're stuck
with minimal features and a generic URL such as www.somefreehost.com/bobswebsite.
This somewhat limits your web site's potential. Most free hosts also require
you to run banners or pop-up ads on your web site to make it worth their
while - these banners and pop-ups can obstruct the view of your web page and
ultimately annoy visitors and drive them away. Lastly, most free hosts have
a daily bandwidth limit that is very small, so if you do get a lot of
traffic you'll most likely exceed the allotted bandwidth and your site will
be temporarily disabled. Overall I would recommend free web hosts for people
that are new to web hosting and want to get a feel for how it works. I'd
also recommend them for web sites that are personal in nature (such as an
online journal) as well as web sites that don't plan to generate any
revenue. Free web hosts are a great stepping stone to paid web hosts - I
myself starting building web sites 4 years ago using free hosts, and today I
run several high traffic web sites that are hosted on paid web hosting
plans.
Now it's time to get into the good stuff - paid web hosting. Web hosting
companies that charge money for their services are plentiful on the
Internet, and feature a wide array of hosting packages at various price
points. First we begin with so called "budget" web hosts, who claim to offer
you the world for only $1 per month. Having used numerous such companies I
feel I must tell you to proceed with caution here, as these companies aren't
all that they are cracked up to be. Many claim to offer 24/7 e-mail support,
which in my experience turned out to be 0/0 e-mail support. My e-mails were
either never answered or answered a week after I sent them. Even when I got
a response it was generic in nature and completely unhelpful. Also, expect
frequent outages with these budget web hosts as they rarely even have their
own web servers - often they are reselling space on someone else's web
servers over which they have no control. One budget web host I used went
down unexpectedly for 6 days, and they didn't even bother to notify their
customers. As a result, my web site was down for 6 days and I lost most of
my visitors as well as my hard-earned search engine rankings. Lesson
learned: if the reliability and success of your web site is important to
you, budget web hosting might not be the answer. However, this is not to say
that all budget web hosts are bad - 1dollarhosting.com is one of the leaders
in the budget web hosting arena and has quite a good reputation.
The next type of paid web host is what I refer to as a "mid-range" web host,
meaning that they offer prices and service that will satisfy the majority of
web sites out there. They provide the tools that most webmasters will need
to run a web site, such as: CGI-BIN, tons of e-mail addresses, FTP support,
visitor statistics and more. These hosts do have monthly bandwidth limits,
but the limits are quite high, and most web sites will never reach them.
However, if your web site features hundreds of file downloads and gets
decent traffic you may be shocked at how soon you'll reach those bandwidth
limits. When you do, your site may be temporarily shut down or you'll have
to pay bandwidth overage charges, which can get pricey. Overall though,
mid-range web hosts will be satisfactory for 90% of the web sites out there,
and generally offer excellent uptime/reliability. In fact, many web-based
businesses are successfully run using a mid-range web host. However, as
mentioned previously, web sites that offer large files for download or sites
that get a huge amount of traffic may find that a mid-range host doesn't
quite suit their needs. These types of web sites may require "high-end" web
hosting solutions, the next topic in our discussion.
High-end web hosts typically service web sites that are extremely popular,
have a high amount of traffic, and/or require pretty much 100% uptime. Most
businesses rely on high-end web hosts to host their web sites. DeepCyber.Net
is an example of a well known high-end web hosting company. Pricing for
high-end hosts varies, but typically runs from about $50 per month to
several hundred dollars per month. Many high-end hosts give you your own
dedicated server (which they support) that is reserved just for you and your
web site. The mid-range hosts I discussed earlier typically host many
different web sites on the same server - this is known as "shared" hosting.
High-end web hosts offer stellar reliability, bandwidth, and just about
every tool you'll ever need to run a successful web site. Another feature
that some high-end web hosts provide is "co-location" hosting. In this
scenario, YOU configure and provide the web server, but you get to plug it
into their data center/network. This can be very nice because their data
center usually has a fiber-optic connection directly to the Internet,
offering blazing bandwidth and stellar reliability. People who run web-based
businesses or extremely popular, high traffic web sites are good candidates
for high-end web hosting.
DCN supplies all hosting levels, from shared hosting, virtual dedicated,
dedicated servers to managed hosting...
Finding a Home for Your Internet
Enterprise - A Point by Point List
After much Net surfing and looking at all the offers you've decided to take
the plunge! You've investigated a good name for your idea. You've decided
it's time to start searching for a home for your Internet vision. By golly,
it's time to start your own enterprise! You're tired of all the reading and
research! You're ready to go!
But how do you choose? What should a first time entrepreneur get?
Thankfully, there is a way to come upon a good choice! Read on and I'll
explain what you should examine when making your selection.
The main thing to consider is what kind and how many different services are
you going to need. What do you think are the most basic things you want your
website to do? Those are practical considerations since you don't want to
leave out some essential service; all the same, you don't want to buy more
than what you really have to.
The general trend appears to be in favor of providers that offer many
integrated services (built-in); it makes perfect sense getting all the
services you'll need from one location. As an added bonus, it does make
administration easier since you don't have separate accounts to deal with.
You'll also save money because the packages are less expensive than buying
extra services piecemeal.
You do have to be careful when choosing packages because you could pay a
high price for things your startup can't use or won't need! The trick is to
get all that you need and provide a little room for future expansion. When
it comes to this buying decision, pricing - though always important - should
be your last consideration.
Services, room for growth and price are the basic elements of your purchase
decision. Let's take a look at each one:
Services:
You don't want to skimp on this one! Think about all that you'll need and
get it. Mainly, you'll need a way to bill your customers, track their
interests and stay in touch with them.
You have to make sure your provider offers all the services you're going to
need to process Credit Cards and email. In particular, services related to
initial customer contact and follow up with sequential emails. Another item
to consider is the ability to track your visitors and learn what their
interests are!
You should look to get as many integrated services as you can. That's so
important because it's VERY expensive to order them after the fact.
Room for Growth:
If you think you'll ever branch out, this is something to consider: Will you
be able to create additional Internet addresses linked to your main account,
at no extra cost? Some providers allow you to take advantage of that
feature; a point well worth considering for future expansion.
Pricing:
When considering how much to spend, you have to take into account all of the
above plus your financial situation. Only you know how much you can afford
to pay.
Extra Considerations
Since only you know what kind of enterprise is going to anchor your initial
Internet adventure, you should consider all aspects related to it. As an
example, if you're going to offer sound and streaming video to your
customers, your needs should be met by a provider that has all the specific
requirements needed for those services.
Hosting AND a source of Income
There are some providers that will offer you discounts or financial
incentives to bring in subscribers. A point to consider because you get two
birds with one stone: A home for your enterprise and a way to make a steady
monthly income from your referrals. I've heard some folks are making a very
good living doing that!
Hunting for a place to host your Internet venture is a big decision that
will affect your entire Web operation. You should take your time and
consider all the angles. It's something so basic! Making the right choices
will make your first Internet presence a streamlined and productive affair.
Effectiveness of Web Hosting Directories (WHDs)
John Doe is very happy today, for the first time in his life he has created
his very own website. Now he is looking for a web host so that he can put
his identity on the net. Casually he asks his friend Bill about it. Bill
tells him that web-hosting directories are the best place to look for a web
host. Getting curious John then asks Bill what exactly a Web Hosting
Directory is. Bill responds that web hosting directories are a web hosting
marketplace where prospective hosts list their products, plans, prices and
other important information so that according to their requirements,
customers can choose a suitable plan. Along with the details, it also
contains web hosts' rankings. John is now extremely happy as his dream is
finally going to come to fruition. Like John, there are many beginners who
are in search of a reliable web host and come across web hosting
directories. Here a new question arises: Are these web hosting directories
really trustworthy sources for novices like John? To find an answer it's
very important to understand the working of WHDs.
Basically web-hosting directories are of two types: paid WHDs and free WHDs.
For paid directories, either web hosts pay a set amount for placing their
banners on the site, or they pay commission if they get customers via that
medium. On the other hand, free WHDs list their services without paying any
fees.
Some people believe that paid WHDs are very easy to manipulate as the
ranking of web hosts can be changed in unfair ways. Others have the view
that WHDs that are actually free, reflect the true ranking of web hosts
companies.
It is not possible for any web hosting company to have 100% positive
reviews. It is also observed that at times customers who are satisfied with
their web host forget to express their opinion about that host. However, a
biased customer who is not satisfied with their web host does not forget to
mention their opinion of that web host. This implies that a negative review
doesn't always reflect the true picture of a web host company.
No doubt web hosting directories are very useful if the newbie like John Doe
wants to compare prices and features of different companies. But, when it
comes to choosing a web host he/she should make an intelligent choice by
referring to other resource sites (forums etc.) as well.
Web Hosting and Development
If you've ever browsed the World Wide Web and wondered how you could stake
your claim on the Internet, like the millions of others that have done so
already, then web hosting can provide you with the services to do just that.
The Internet is a great way of sharing information and it is possible for
you to take a portion of the web and make it your own. This article
introduces the term "web hosting" and provides some useful tips for web
development once you've obtained some web space.
What is the World Wide Web?
The "World Wide Web" is the network of computers from
all over the world that communicate with each other using the HTTP protocol,
a language that allows the transmission of web documents. Be careful as this
term is not synonymous with the "Internet" because it is defined as a
network of networks, where the computers communicate with protocols other
than HTTP. The web is what you see on your Internet browser, the web pages
complete with graphics, sound and other information. All this has got to
come from somewhere, and this is where web hosting comes in.
Web Hosting
The information that you see from your web browser is
contained in web pages. These web pages are kept on computers called web
servers. Web hosting is about the storage of the web pages so that people
can access them. It is possible to host your own websites yourself but the
reasons stopping most people doing this is that there are issues to consider
with having the right hardware and software to successfully host your web
pages. Your web pages will take a certain amount of space, users will need
to download each page to view them and your Internet connection needs to be
fast to offer good performance to your viewers. Using specialized companies
that offer web hosting capabilities on their web servers will take most of
these worries away from you but you will need to choose wisely and weigh up
the costs and your needs. In addition to having access to a web server, you
will also need to register a domain name (for a cost) that uniquely
identifies your website.
What Web Hosting Can Do For You
The most basic service that web hosting offers is that
it exposes your web pages for others to see. The other services are: email
capabilities that allow for email to be received and sent from your server;
database capabilities that allow for large amounts of information to be
updated and accessed on the web; and dynamic content which allows for users
to interact with the web pages you've made.
Website Development
Poorly designed websites will most likely turn away users and harm the credibility of the information it contains. Thought should be put in on the way it looks and the way you intend your users to interact with the content. It is also recommended for more complex websites, a structured development process should be followed.
Here is a guide to the logical steps of web development: ·
Requirements Analysis: What is the purpose of the website? What content should it contain? ·
Design: How should the pages be linked? What structure should they take? How should the pages interact with the user? ·
Implementation: This step is the actual coding of the websites in accordance to the previous websites. ·
Testing: Does the website do what it should? ·
Maintenance: Is the information on the website up-to-date?
Some useful hints for web development below are taken from software quality
aspects but they apply to the development of websites as well. They are
described in terms of web development:
Reliability: Is the website reliable? Do faults allow for the system to
continue running?
Robustness: How does the website respond to incorrect input?
Performance: How fast does the web page respond to user's actions? Is it efficient in processing requests and inputs?
Usability: Is the website easy to navigate and understand? Maintainability: Is the website easy to change? Can new functionality be added?
Portability: What software requirements does the
website require? Will this limit the amount of potential users?
Understandability: How well do you understand the website you've developed?
When designing your website, keep these quality aspects in mind as they will
help you develop pages worth visiting. How to choose the way to host your
website is half of the problem, the other half is to create a website that
people would want to visit and come back to. Knowledge of producing a good
design can help you get the most out of your creations.
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.
1. Backup all of your files and databases
Before you decide to transfer anything over, you need to create a backup of
every file and database you have on the current hosting provider's server.
FTP into your current hosting account and copy all of the files from your
public_html directory into a directory on your local hard drive that you'll
find easy to remember later.
As for the database, backup methods will vary according to the database
vendor, the control panel being used by the host if any, and the operating
system of the server. Most providers provide a backup utility that allows
you to save a copy of the contents of all of your database tables. If there
isn't a simple backup utility available, you will need to export the
contents of your database in a comma delimited file or the standard file
format for the particular database you use. Most backup utilities will
convert the database into one long SQL file that is then easy for any
compatible database engine to reconstruct.
2. Transferring to the new server
Make sure that your website is functioning properly at the new location
before you change the DNS information of your domain name. While it may not
be possible to fully navigate the site without the domain name pointing to
it, you can still point to some individual pages to be sure they will come
up. For this though, you'll need to use the IP address of your hosting
account along with your username if you have a shared IP address. On a
Cpanel server, you would enter http://89.72.231.69/~username and your main
website will come up. You can use this address until the DNS information
from the domain propagates throughout the web.
3. Tidy up the loose ends
Upload the backup file of your databases or execute the SQL file you
generated in the backup. This should restore your database back to what it
was on the old server. Change the name server information for your domain
name. This is almost always found with the registrar that you registered
your domain with or with your old web hosting provider. They almost always
assign you a username and password that allows you to log into an account
that allows you to change the name servers. If you don't have a control
panel, then simply email the company that registered your domain for you and
ask them to change the name servers to the new servers. Within 24 to 48
hours, your website will be served from the new server and not the old one.
Once you can confirm this, it is safe to ask the old web hosting company to
delete and discontinue your old account.
Managed Hosting
Managed hosting is a dedicated server that is accompanied by a full suite of
technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from
dedicated Web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers
but are still responsible for virtually all administrative and maintenance
duties.
Managed hosting are meant for those websites that are designed to host busy
e-commerce sites and dynamic, database driven Web pages. Perfect for
organizations that don't have the time or capital to invest in server
administration.
MANAGED SERVER = DEDICATED SERVER + COMPLETE SUPPORT OF SERVER
ADMINISTRATION
A managed server will come equipped with all the features of a dedicated
server, plus instead of leaving most of the administrative tasks to the
customer, a managed provider will typically handle that as well.
Many companies will often assign you a dedicated service representative who
will cater only to you and a handful of other accounts. This support also
comes in the form of proprietary control panel technology that enables the
inexperienced administrator to easily set up and maintain sites on a server.
This is achieved through an intuitive and user friendly point and click
method rather than by typing complicated commands at a prompt line.
Hosting companies offer a supplementary suite of features and services that
related to managed hosting, including application and database management,
high-availability services and load balancing. These hosting companies will
back up their services with performance guarantees and Service Level
Agreements. Get managed hosting from
DeepCyber.Net today.
(http://www.deepcyber.net)
Unmanaged services, on the other hand, give the customer complete remote
server administration capability and freedom. The downside to this is that
unmanaged servers require a large amount of time and technical expertise, as
the customer is ultimately responsible for the instillation and management
of the server - not the Web host. For this reason, unmanaged servers are
only recommended for individuals and companies with extensive server
administration resources or expertise, as well as a significant amount of
time available to take care of the server.
If you're unsure about which service to choose, give serious consideration
to choosing a managed server. While taking the managed route is more
expensive, it is also much more reassuring for the inexperienced
administrator. Remember, you can always downgrade your account to an
unmanaged service later, once you've acquired some expertise in server
administration. Though once you opt for the personal attention you will
receive through a managed host, you might think twice of turning into an
unmanaged service later on.
Choosing The Wrong Server Will Literally
Make Or Break You
Choosing the right web server will be one of the most important decisions
you will ever make with your online business. Why? Because the web server
you choose will literally make or break your online business.
Let's talk about two types of servers, one is Virtual Web Hosting and the
other is Virtual Private Servers.
Over the last couple of years Virtual Web Hosting has been the only way to
go when choosing a web server. One of the reasons that Virtual Web Hosting
became so popular was because they supported the necessary files and allowed
you to have more freedom than other conventional web hosts. But now you can
have more freedom than ever before with Virtual Private Servers. Moreover,
Virtual Private Servers should not be confused with Virtual Hosts, because
they are completely different.
Virtual Hosting
Virtual Hosting is also known as Shared Web Hosting, where you are sharing
the physical server and a single set of software applications with other
users. Virtual Hosting has been extremely popular in the past for it's fast
deployment, strong resources, and most importantly for having a very
reasonable price. Another advantage to Virtual Hosting is that you have a
powerful, reliable, and professionally managed server without having to have
advanced technical skills, making it ideal for an individual, small
business, or even a beginner webmaster.
The disadvantage of Virtual Hosting is that you are sharing the server with
other users, which are configured and controlled by an administrator, not
you. So basically you have your hands tied behind your back, because you
have to contact the administrator every time you have to adjust or change
your configuration settings. Even if you managed to get a hold of the
administrator, they may not fulfill your request. It's up to them, they are
the administrator. If you were the administrator you wouldn't have these
limitations and would have full control.
Virtual Private Servers
Virtual Private Servers are a hot topic these days and for a good reason.
Before I get into the advantages of a Virtual Private Server, let explain
what it is first. A Virtual Private Server is a single server that is
partitioned at the root into multiple dedicated servers. This allows you to
share the cost of the network connectivity, hardware, and system maintenance
with other hosting customers, while maintaining your flexibility and
freedom.
The real advantage of Virtual Private Servers is that they allow you to have
complete control and they have the security advantages of a dedicated server
at the fraction of the cost. You have access to the virtual root, Telnet,
web configuration files, and full CGI-BIN access. I can't forget to mention
that you also have access to your password, aliases file, and sendmail
configuration file. For many reasons you can see that a Virtual Private
Server is an excellent solution for small to medium size businesses that
have an increasingly complex needs.
Moreover, there is one disadvantage with Virtual Private Servers, you need
to have some program knowledge to control and configure the settings. Sounds
overwhelming, most businesses that offer Virtual Private Servers have very
detailed manuals making them easier to configure and control no matter what
your program level is.
Which one is right for you? That all depends on you and the size of your
network.
If you have or plan on having just one web site and have absolutely no
programming knowledge, then Virtual Hosting is the recommended and
economical way for you to go. A Virtual Host can cost anywhere from $20 -
$50 a month for an account, rather than a $100 or more for a Virtual Private
Server.
On the other hand, if you have a larger network that requires multiple web
sites, like ours, and you have some programming knowledge, then a Virtual
Private Server is ideal for you. You can host up to 50 web sites on a
Virtual Private Server account, instead of having multiple Virtual Hosting
accounts, which is not as economical.
When it comes time to get a web server, make sure that the server fits your
needs and that it supports the essential software for a prosperous online
business.
4 Critical Things To Look Out For In A Web Hosting Service
1. The reputation of the web hosting company.
Most web hosting companies on the web have been in existence for at least 2
years and they are usually handled by experience and IT savvy network
engineers who can provide the necessary support and services to their
customers. However, there are also several "mom and pop" set ups out there
which are handled by amateurs who are greedy to make plenty of your own
money without even knowing how to do something as fundamental as setting up
your user account. Be sure to check the credentials of the web hosting firm
by either reading their about us or the technology they use for their server
farm. Make sure you pick a company that has been around for at the very
least 2 years and have a successful track record with 95% up time for all
its servers. That's a reasonable expectation as 100% is not a realistic aim
in the computing world.
DeepCyberNet has been in the industry since 2000,
DCN is even an official
acronym for DeepCyberNet, just Google: deepcybernet... DeepCyberNet is one
of the most reputable web host and domain name registration entities around.
2. How much of storage space are you given?
Most web companies out the offer space that range from as small as 20 MB to
as big as 2GB or even more. However, this depends largely upon you the user.
Personally, I would recommend you to use DCN ( www.DeepCyber.Net ) as your
hosting company because I find that they provide the most innovative
packages.
3. What is the available bandwidth space for you to transfer data each
month?
We all need to transfer data to our website and update its content often in
order to stay afresh and also to keep our ratings high up on the search
engines right? Well all web hosting companies offer a certain bandwidth or
"transfer window" if you will to enable you transport your data from your
local computer hard disk drive to your web server. However this transfer
window has a limited space. This is set to prevent the servers on their side
from having a bandwidth overload from users repeatedly transferring large
amounts of data to and from without any limits being set. A bandwidth space
is allocated to enable you to manage the amount data that you want to
transfer each month into the storage space allocated. Note that the data you
transfer is constantly kept track of until you have reach the transfer limit
for that month. Most web hosting companies tend to be stingy on this so as
to provide so called "high speed data transfer" to their clients. They
usually cap this bandwidth off at 1GB. DeepCyber.Net however, offers its
client from 300 Gigabytes to 3 Terabytes bandwidth per month. Can you see
why everybody is switching to
DeepCyberNet now?
4. The support provided both online and offline to ensure you can sleep
soundly at night.
This is the area that is overlooked most often whenever the novice webmaster
signs up for a webhosting contract. It is absolutely important ( burn this
into your head) I repeat absolutely important to ensure that you get a web
hosting company that will answer your calls and ensure your website stays up
and running even if you call them at 2 am in the morning to request for
help. I am talking about 24 hours support everyday of the week.
Cheap Web Hosting - Choosing The Right Affordable WEB Hosting Company
You have carried out the hard part and that's creating the web site. The
next step is to get it hosted as to allow the public find your site. So why
do so many first time web host seekers fall into the trap of a bad web host
company? Well there are a number of factors to consider and none bigger than
the price. We all want cheap web hosting but unfortunately price is not
always what you should go for.
You have to be more aware of the web hosting company that you choose. If you
have a budget stick to it, if you see hosting for little or nothing and find
yourself thinking "how do they make money" stay well away, the chances are
your web site will be hosted with very little bandwidth resulting in a very
slow accessible and unprofessional web site. You may also find that the
customer service is little or none.
You need to clearly outline your own requirements to the web hosting
company, if you do not do so you are at fault and not in any position to
point the finger at others. If you make a list of requirements such as
particular files you need etc you can send your requirements to multiple
hosting companies and see who comes back with the greater service.
What if I have problems?
Problems can occur and they maybe your fault and sometimes the web host
company is to blame. Problems with technology can occur any time but it's
how the hosting company react to the fault that will determine if you stay
with them or not. If you find your web site dropping off line or downloading
slowly at a regular basis simply change to another web host company. On
going problems not fixed is a very bad sign and it shows arrogance towards
their customers. Support is vital from a web host company and it should be
24 hour if it's a large organization.
Virus Problems and Hackers
It is up to the web host company to ensure that your files are protected
from virus and hackers at all times. There has been plenty of companies who
have had their web sites hacked only then to find out that the web host
company had not got the latest patches and security software applied. First
timers to web hosting should always ask how often updates and what software
is used to protect web sites.
Tips:
In business your web site can be a large source of revenue or sometimes your
only source. Always do your own backup of the web site. If the web host
company experience problems and for whatever reason has no backups available
your whole business could be on hold. Backups are vital so do it as regular
as possible or face the consequences. Some companies have testimonials on
their web site from customers, do not be afraid to call these guys for an up
to date reference.
Hosting Options for an Ecommerce Web Site
Deciding how to host your ecommerce Web site and what approach to take can
be daunting, each approach with different advantages and disadvantages.
Storefronts
If you have a small business, you may want to consider a storefront or an
online mall. For a fee, these services help you build a small Web site to
sell your products. These "site in a box" Web site services include
everything you need to sell online.
Features and support vary by program and can include options such as search
engine placement, credit card processing, and advertising. These tend to be
template services, however, with less flexibility than a custom site.
Familiarize yourself with the current offerings in this area before making a
final decision.
Custom Sites
If you have a business that is too large for or has outgrown the smaller
storefront services, you may want to consider the more costly - but also
more flexible - custom site. For the added cost you can have a unique site,
receive greater support, and handle more traffic. You have the options of
hiring the same company to design and host your site or using separate
design and hosting services.
Hiring the same company to design and host your site.
This option involves the fewest logistics, but may come with trade-offs in
design quality or host reliability. Be aware that designing and hosting
require different sets of skills and expertise. When choosing a service,
evaluate their experience and ask for references in both areas. Go to sites
the company has designed and navigate them. Note how the sites look, how
easy they are to understand, and how quickly they load into your browser.
To evaluate the company's hosting service, contact current customers and ask
how pleased they are with the service. Find out how often the server is down
and ask about help desk responsiveness. Also, consider how your site will be
updated. Can you upload changes directly or do you have to wait for someone
at the hosting company to get to it? If it is the latter, ask current
customers about their experience with this process.
Using a separate design and hosting service.
By separating the design and hosting, you have more choices. Thus, you can
have more control over both your budget and your site. Technical
incompatibilities are a risk when taking this approach, however. Be sure
your designer is familiar with your hosting service and it's technical
capabilities. Any and all of the above is available at DCN (http://www.deepcyber.net),
or DeepCyberNet
Windows vs. Linux Hosting
The Basics of Linux & Windows :
Linux (and its close relation Unix) and Windows 2000 (and its close cousin
Windows NT) are types of software (known as operating systems) that web
servers use to do the kind of things that web servers do. You do not need to
know any real detail of either to make a decision as to which you need but
here a few guidelines.
Just because you use a windows desktop PC doesn't mean you have to opt for
Windows web hosting (and the reverse is true as well). The operating system
you use on your desktop has little to do with your choice of web hosts. As
long as you understand how to use your FTP or web publishing software, your
can use either operating system.
But what is important is that you know what you want your website to do and
what you want to offer on it. This is what will ultimately help determine
the type of web hosting that will work best for you. As mentioned earlier,
interactive websites usually rely on ASP, PHP, or Perl type languages.
Linux Web Hosting or Windows 2000 Web Hosting?
When it comes to Web hosting, Linux has, for some time, been widely
considered the best OS for Web servers. It's typically found to be the most
reliable, stable and efficient system and, as such, it's commonly used for
the demanding environment of Web and mail servers. Indeed,Most of the
clients websites of aalpha NET runs on the Linux OS precisely because of
this traditional stability.
The million-dollar question is what application are you looking to use for
your hosting? Consider the tools and scripting languages you plan to use -
if you use PHP, Perl or MySQL, Linux is the way forward. If apps are
Microsoft-specific, then Windows is what you need.
If your site, like most web sites, is what might be termed "brochure ware"
then Linux servers are ideal. By brochure ware I mean a site that offers the
kind of information that in the past might have been provided on paper in
the form of brochures, newsletters or data sheets. Brochure-ware sites will
offer some interaction through enquiry forms and can certainly incorporate
online purchasing and other routine e-commerce functions.
The following are the advantages of using Linux based web server compared to
Windows based web server :
Stable: Linux/Unix operating systems has traditionally been believed to be
very stable and robust. A web site housed on a Linux operating system will
have very high up-time (of the order of 99.9%). Of course, other factors
such as power supply, network admin skills, and network load etc. also
matter when it comes to maintaining the system uptime.
Low cost of ownership: The Linux OS comes free of cost (or at very
insignificant cost, usually cost of distribution). Also, it has full fledged
server, and desk top applications that comes free along with the OS. These
server applications (such as FTP, Web Server, DNS Server, File Server etc.)
being free, are also very stable.
Ease of use : When it comes to web hosting, it is easy to host on Linux web
servers. The process of uploading and hosting is almost same for both Linux
and Windows web servers. If you want to use a Windows based tool such as
Front Page for uploading a web site on to a Linux based web server, make
sure that the Front Page extensions are enabled. This is only required if
you are uploading using HTTP feature (http://www.yourwebsite.com) of Front
Page. Front Page also makes it possible to upload a web site using FTP. You
need to select ftp://www.yourwebsite.com for up loading using front page FTP
option. Note that if you select "Front Page Extensions" during web site
design, you must enable Front Page extensions on a Linux web server also.
These days, all Linux web servers are coming with installable Front Page
extensions, and this should pose no problem for hosting on a Linux platform.
You can use almost all types of file extensions (or scripts) when using
Linux web server. Commonly, the following extensions are supported:
.cgi, .html, .htm, .pl, .php, .shtml, .xml, and others.
Basically it means that you can host web sites that use different types of
server side scripts including .cgi, .pl, .php, and .asp (with plug-in).
Easy to move between hosts : A web site designed to be hosted on a Linux
based web server can be hosted on a Windows web server easily, where as the
reverse is not always true.
Most widely used : Linux/Unix based web hosting is most widely used compared
to Windows based web hosting.
Scalability : A web site is dynamic. Usually, a web site starts with a few
pages of html and grows over a period of time to suit the customers
requirements. It is preferable to design a web site keeping this
requirements in mind. A web site designed for compatibility with a
Linux/Unix based web server meets the scalability requirement easily without
making any site wide design changes.
On the downside, Linux based web server is not fully compatible with
Microsoft technologies. If you are using any specialized applications or VB
for development of your web site, it is preferable to host with a Windows
based web server.
The Top 10 Hosting Essentials Every
Linux Plan Should Have
Any website is comprised of the following: Domain name, Webspace, Webpages.
Lets say, You have got your Domain Name (for ex.,
http://www.deepcyber.net ).
Its time to check for a good hosting service provider to have your files
uploaded in the domain. If you are opting for Linux Based Hosting Plan, make
sure you have the following included in your plans :
1. Control Panel - This is the nucleus of your website. In a Control Panel,
popularly known as CP, you can literally do anything. The moment you signup
for a Hosting Pack, you must be provided with a CP to manage your webspace.
2. POP3 email Ids & Aliases - yourname@deepcyber.net is an example POP3 ID.
You must be provided with ample of POP3 email ids and it depends on the
Package size.
3. FTP Accounts & Virtual FTP - This is where you upload your files, delete
them, update them. This again comes along with the CP. Make sure you have
handful of FTP sub-accounts also to provide your clients/users password
protected directories. This is very much useful wherein your clients / users
can use the FTP to upload /download files from particular password protected
folder of your website.
4. Backup - Most of the Hosts take Automated Backups. But users do not take
much care on this while choosing the Hosting Pack. This feature is as
essential as any other in this list.
5. Web Statistics - Analysis of your website visitors plays a key role in
the success of your website. Say, your website has been launched and you get
NIL Visits or More than 100 Visits per day. Whatever the case may be, you
can view the Report using Statistics Application that run in the server
backend.
6. Bandwidth - Choose the Hosting Plan that gives enough Bandwidth for your
website. Even though you cannot judge at the beginning, as time progresses,
you can easily deduct the Bandwidth required.
7. PHP & Mysql Support - All the Linux Plans support PHP & Mysql. Make sure
you get this free of charge when you buy the hosting plan. Few Hosting
Providers may charge extra for MYSQL Database Support & PhpMyAdmin.
8. Webmail & SMTP - Email becomes key part in your life once you launch the
website. Check if the Hosts provide with WEBMAIL (mail.yourdomain.com) to
check your mails thru a web based interface using Squirrelmail or Horde.
Corporate Users prefer downloading mails thru Email Clients such as Eudora
or Outlook Express. Only if SMTP or IMAP support is enabled you can use this
option. Hence check if SMTP support is provided.
9. SPAM Filter - No email user is free from a spam attack. Hence you need
to have Spam Filters installed on the server where your website resides.
10. IP - If your website prefers SSL Support (https://) as time grows, makes
ure you get a DEDICATED IP. Most of the websites are hosted on shared IPs.
Ask your Hosting Provider about the extra charges involved in getting a
dedicated IP and SSL Support. ( Note : For SSL (https://), you need to buy a
Digital Certificate, you can get the best price at http://www.deepcyber.net
under the
SSL Certificates menu. )
CHECKLIST : Domains, Hosting, Web Design
Domain NAME Registration CHECKLIST
Once your domain is registered, check these things :
# Does the REGISTRANT NAME and ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT show your name/email ?
# Did the Domain Registration Service Provider give you the Domain CONTROL
PANEL with username / password to manage/modify name servers & contact
details in real-time ?
# Do you have the OPTION to get REMINDERS at the time of RENEWAL, well in
advance ?
Web Hosting (Web space) CHECKLIST
# Support, Support, Support - is the KEY issue when it comes to Hosting.
Check the response time of the Service Provider before making an option.
# How skilled the technical persons are ? Just put in few queries and see
how they respond ?
# Get a quick look at the Service Provider Website and make sure its
professional looking with user friendly navigation and layout.
# Check if they have listed TESTIMONIALS, list of sites hosted with them,
discount options for bulk purchase, payment modes. Also make sure there are
NO Hidden charges. The key part to look is : the BANDWIDTH offered for each
hosting plan.
# Multiple Domains in single hosting space. This is an added advantage and
saves your money. You can ask for this option if not provided.
# Make a deep study on the Hosting Plan you choose. Check all the essential
features are provided. To name a few, POP3 mails, SMTP support, FTP Account,
Control Panel, Web mail, Spam Controller, Antivirus, Web Statistics.
DeepCyber.Net fulfills all these requirements and much, much more. Check out
DCN and see for yourself...
Website Design CHECKLIST
# Does the website designer provide you with free minor updates or for a
nominal fee on a yearly contract basis ?
# Is the website professional looking and appeals to the global audience ?
# It has been 3 months since your launch and there is NO fruitful enquiries
and you are upset. Go to : www.google.com and type in your website name
and click search. Does it show up anywhere in the results ? If not have your
designer submit it to Google, or better yet, do it yourself.
# Does the website designer provided you with monitoring service ?
# Does the website take lot of time to load. Make sure it loads faster even
on slow connections. Too much of Flashy animations, bigger size jpegs are
NOT an option for your site. CONTENT is the King. Make sure your website
'delivers'.
Windows Hosting versus Linux Hosting - Which is right for you?
Windows operating systems are found on something like 95% of all personal
computers in the world. With such a total dominance, Microsoft Windows is
top of mind to most new people looking for web hosting. But the reality is
that Unix servers comprise 95% of the servers on the Internet. Actually, the
Internet is originally based on Unix servers. Windows is basically
unreliable compared to Unix. If you want your site up all the time, Windows
is NOT your choice... By choosing a Linux hosting plan, you will find
yourself in good company.
When do you have to use Windows Hosting?
1. .NET technologies including ASP.net are not available on Linux platforms.
If you have a website built with Microsoft .NET technologies you will have
to choose a Windows hosting plan. In fact, if you need ASP without .NET
features, most Linux hosting plans do not offer support for it.
2. Access Databases are only available with a Windows hosting plan. Access
runs on a Microsoft Windows platform and cannot run on a Linux Operating
system.
3. MSSQL by Microsoft. If you need an enterprise class database there are
lots of alternatives that run on the Linux platform, but if you need
Microsoft's MSSQL database, a Windows hosting plan will have to be your
choice.
4. If you are using Microsoft's Sharepoint services like some of the
Sharepoint features found in Frontpage 2003, a Windows Hosting plan is your
only choice.
What is the advantage to choosing Linux Hosting?
All the major services you need to run an enterprise class website are
available on Linux based systems for free. Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP are
being used together to provide the infrastructure behind some of the most
traffic intensive sites on the internet.
PHP runs better on a Linux server than on a Windows server. Having said
that, unless you are putting a heavy load on your PHP scripts, this will not
be noticeable.
In general, Linux hosting plans are at least 20% cheaper than Windows
hosting plans. If you don't need any of the features mentioned above, Linux
hosting is a fine choice for your needs.
For Microsoft specific technologies, Windows hosting plans are usually your
best bet. For everything else, Linux hosting plans will usually be best. With
the cost savings found for Linux hosting plans, Linux hosting is usually the
right choice for you.
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.
Companies such as betting and online gaming have even more stringent
requirements because they need to provide a guaranteed response in near real
time. Sports betting events also have the effect of crowding all the
business within condensed time windows.
This level of hosting goes far beyond the simple provision of bandwidth and
the quality of the server matters not only in terms of its CPU's processing
abilities, quantity of RAM and hard disk space but also the durability of
its components, the power supply available and the ability of fan/s to
disperse the heat generated by a server running 24/7 under possibly very
heavy loads.
With an application designed for use internally within a company, one can
always put a cap on the maximum number of people that could be using the
application. With the internet this number can be unpredictable, or if
measurable through registration, can grow large very quickly. The internet
is a new operating regime, not only in terms of the security issues it
presents but also in the scale of operations, and this requires a new way of
thinking when designing applications and the hardware architectures that
host them.
The traditional approach is to scale up vertically, increasing the
bandwidth, CPU/s' speeds, memory and so forth. There is a limit, however, to
how far this can be taken and with so much depending on such a concentration
of resources, a failure is nothing less than catastrophic. The answer is to
achieve scalability horizontally with a distributed architecture. This
architecture not only allows increased scalability, but also creates
reliance to faults and failures within the system. What's more, this model
is inherently suitable to most operations and services offered over the
internet which are in themselves quite simple, but that there is just too
many of them.
This situation is akin to how humans organize themselves to accomplish very
large workloads; there comes a time when one person, no matter how
hardworking and clever will not be able to cope. At that stage the tasks
will be split among many people doing exactly the same task and yet
coordinating their activities. Imagine if you will, people flooding into the
premises of a bank or payment office. Many cashiers wait in booths doing
exactly the same job, overseen by managers and perhaps a helper guiding the
queues. The architecture and layout of the building hosting these
activities, is itself designed to allow a smooth flow of people.
Hosting a distributed architecture is more complex then a traditional
centralized system where everything happens in one place. Parallel events
need to be coordinated so that they work as a seamless whole and
transactional control assumes a critical role. Hardware setup and middleware
software need to be designed much in the same way as a purpose-built
building, and layers of middle management in the organization would be in
place for a human organization. The applications themselves should be aware
that they are running in a distributed environment and be able to both
benefit and not obstruct this environment.
The key to a successful internet presence stems from both an understanding
of the nature of the internet and the tools that are now available to build
up this success. The internet has indeed come a long way.
DeepCyberNet has evolved its hosting services to offering advanced hosting
services to clients around the world. Backups, applications designed for
distributed architectures, geographically distributed resources such as
databases and fail-safe architectures are at the heart of these services.
Webhosting - Things to know
The price
You cannot start a business without knowing your budget and the kind of
money you would need to start a business. Similarly, you cannot find the
right web hosting company without knowing how much you're willing to pay for
the web hosting facility and web hosting service.
So, be practical about the needs of your web hosting requirement and be
frank about how much you're willing to pay for it.
The customer service
But there's one advice that I can give you. The web hosting industry is a
relatively competitive one. Look around and make sure you like the web host.
Communicate with the people in the company and ask them lots of questions.
If their customer service is good, go for it. If they are not native English
speakers, turn around and run!
As their web hosting client, you have to expect them to give you nothing
less than PERFECT hosting customer service, although frankly, their profit
margin for hosting is quite slim.
Don't pay monthly
One thing I know is that paying on a monthly basis is not a good idea. It's
better to just book and get the hosting account for the whole year. So, make
sure you find the right one right from the start! Otherwise, you're stuck
with the web hosting company for the whole year. Why not pay for web hosting
on a monthly basis? Easy, it costs more!
You see, if you can get a web hosting account and domain for USD$105 or a
whole year, why pay USD$14.95 per month? BECAUSE USD$14.95 per month works
out to be USD$179.40 per year!! That's USD$74.40 more! So, don't be enticed
with their monthly payment schemes.
Let's look at it this way, if you find the right web hosting company from
the start, you'll be more than happy to stay with them for as long as you're
still in business, right?
Instant Activation
You want to know that if you're paying them instantly, you should
get the account activated instantly as well. The longest time I would
tolerate to get my website up and running is 24 hours - if I was paying them
online. There's no reason for a delay since everything done online can be
done instantly.
Build it yourself
If you're a quick learner, you can definitely do everything up by yourself.
No problems to it. If the plan comes with a site builder (a DIY system), then
it's great! You're getting value for money. What's a site studio? Well, it's
a web based program that allows you to create your own websites online. Some
of them are really quite simple to use. It's almost like working with a
Microsoft Word program - copying, pasting and writing all into the web
browser and then saving it.
If you know basic HTML, you probably won't be using the site studio but it's
worth having it around in case you need something up really quick. Besides,
most site studios come with quite a huge database of templates that you can
use for your website. This saves you time, effort and money in hiring a
graphic designer and writer like me.
On the site
You should be getting some side dishes along with your new web hosting
account. Look out for free blogs, forums, scripts, ecommerce shopping carts,
cgi scripts, newsletter forms, enquiry forms, customer support tools like
chat system, free images, audio, buttons...etc, and php nuke. This works
mainly to enhance your web hosting service and website. You'll lose nothing
if you decide against using them but if you do, it's wonderful tools to
enhance your web site.
How to Choose a Web Host - Frequently Asked Questions
There are several things to look for when choosing a reliable web host.
Below, you will be provided with frequently asked questions and the answers
to common questions.
Q. How reliable is the service of a web host?
Most surveys indicate that reliability is an e-businesses main concern. You
should look for at least a 95 percent guarantee uptime, to ensure that the
service is indeed reliable.
Q. What kind of performance can I expect?
A great hosting company is always connected to the Internet, not going
through someone else's network operations center. The servers should be
fast. You should also let your host know if you plan to use bandwidth
killers such as streaming audio or video.
Q. How good is phone support?
When it comes to phone support, you should look for 24/7 phone support
that's always available with a live operator.
Q. How much will it cost me?
The entry level hosting service with a single domain name, 20 - 30 MB (Mega
Bytes) of hard drive space, email services, and up to a 1 GB (Giga Bytes) of
monthly bandwidth should cost you no more than 50 dollars.
Q. How is security handled?
The passwords to your website or domain should be required to control the
host as well as manage the web site. Every file on your server should also
be backed up on a daily basis. You should always look for a host that offers
you secure transactions as well.
Q. How much bandwidth will I need for data transfer?
Roughly estimating, 2GB of bandwidth should be perfect for a very small
personal site. If you're going to running a medium site with text and images
but no large files, 5 GB would be ideal. Larger sites on the other hand,
require 30 GB of bandwidth. Good hosting company's will send you an email if
you're about to run out of bandwidth, letting you know that your site may go
offline if you exceed the quota. This way, you can upgrade your plan if you
choose to do so.
Q. What about a control panel?
Almost all hosting packages come with some type of control panel, enabling
you to configure your hosting packages as well as your settings without
having to learn the entire operating system that powers the site. Control
panels can be accessed through a secure webpage, and then they will appear
in your web browser. The most popular control panels are Helm, Cpanel,
Hsphere, Plesk, and Ensim. The most common is Cpanel, which only runs on
Linux. Most beginners and other users would be more suited to Cpanel, as it
runs on the cheaper platform of Linux. The real big player have their own
control panel.
Q. What about a POP3 account?
When sending and receiving email, POP3 counts are very important. These
types of accounts you can assign to individual users as their own email
addresses. You'll need enough POP3 accounts for the amount of email
addresses that you wish to assign to other people. Often times this number
will be quoted as being unlimited, although there are only so many email
addresses that you can actually create.
Q. What about spam and viruses?
These features are classified in a separate category, and can include
autoresponders, spam filters, even anti virus protection. They may be
important to you, but they will actually vary from host to host. Basically,
these are all free things that the host will give to you when you sign up
for an account. If you're plan doesn't quite offer what you want, your host
may be flexible when setting up your account.
Q. What about running my own online store?
If you are planning on running your own store on the internet, there will be
a few factors that will be involved with that decision. First of all, you'll
need an SSL certificate for your website, so that you can process credit
card transactions. Basically, these are 3rd parties that will take care of
each and every transaction, for a small percent fee, eliminating the need
for extra security on your server. You'll also need to ensure that the
server as well as the software is capable of running the script you have for
your shopping cart.
Q. I need help making that final decision.
If you plan on having a website that you'll be relying on for income or
storing important data, you'll need to make sure that you go with a host
that will offer you a high level of customer support. A lot of hosting
companies will offer forums as well as their contact numbers; however the
forums can be excellent when you are dealing very small problems.
In Conclusion
By taking your time and checking to see what each host has to offer, you'll
find which service best fits your needs. There are many hosts and many
different packages out there to choose from, which mean you shouldn't go
with the first one you see. Take the time to compare plans, costs, and
customer service and you shouldn't have any problems choosing a web host.
All of the above hosting plans and even domain name registration can be
supplied in one spot:
DeepCyberNet
Business Web Hosting: Which is Right for You?
Business web hosting is what you need. You have a website you need to put
online. When you look around on the internet, there are thousands of
choices. How do you choose the right web hosting package for your business?
Reliable web hosting
Business web hosting must be reliable. The last thing you need to worry
about is that the provider's service becomes unavailable for long stretches
of time. What kind of uptime guarantee do they provide you with? How long
have they been in business?
Hosting support when you need it
What level of support does the company offer you? You may not need 24x7
service but is their support desk open reasonable hours? Beware of companies
that only offer email web hosting support. Some of these companies will tell
you that they only offer email hosting support in order to keep costs down.
What they often don't say is that they are doing the business part time and
can't possibly be available to answer the phone. When you need help, you may
have to wait days to get service.
Ecommerce web hosting
Do you plan to sell online? If so, does the web host have shopping carts
available? Are they included for free or are they extra? Get the names of
the ecommerce shopping carts they provide, and research their capabilities
to be able to determine which one is best for you.
Setting Up Your First Web Hosting Account
The Basics
Setting up a web hosting account for the first time can be confusing and
frustrating for the novice. This article will guide you through the steps of
setting up a new web hosting account for your website.
Setting up your web hosting account will depend upon many things, the first
of which is:
Do you already have a website built and ready to be hosted?
If the answer to that question is yes, then your next set of questions
should be:
How was your website designed? Did you design it yourself using Microsoft
FrontPage, or did you use some other WYSIWYG website building software? Did
a professional designer build your site for you? Did they use Microsoft
FrontPage, or did they use some other WYSIWYG website building software? Did
your designer use a database driven software, such as Cold Fusion? Maybe
they coded your site using a text editor - you'll need the answers to these
questions.
If you have a FrontPage website, you'll need a web host who supports
FrontPage. If your site was developed with Cold Fusion, you'll need a web
host who supports Cold Fusion. This also applies to other design software
not mentioned here. Check with your web designer and/or web design program's
documentation for further help with this.
Maybe you haven't yet designed your website. Many web hosts offer online
website building software that requires no programming or HTML knowledge. If
this is your strategy, make sure your web host offers such software, and
find out if there's a cost for you to use it.
Finding The Right Web Host
Locating a web host that gives you the reliability you need, plus excellent
customer service, and that offers all the features you're going to need, can
be challenging.
You can begin your search by asking business associates, friends and
relatives who have websites of their own, who they use. Just as you would
get a recommendation for a good restaurant, word of mouth can sometimes
steer you in the right direction.
You can also check out the many web hosting directories on the web. These
directories are set up to allow you to search using the features that you're
looking for in a web host. Keep in mind though, that many of the listings
you see may also be paid listings that are pushed your way for obvious
reasons.
Once you narrow down your search to a few potential web hosts, your next
step will be to visit the many web hosting message boards and forums on the
web. Perform a search on each of the potential web hosts that you have in
mind - read through the posts and see what other people's experiences have
been with the hosts you have in mind. If you see too many negative comments
or experiences by others, you might want to take a hint from that and rule
out that particular hosting company.
Once you've narrowed down your search to a few web hosts, you should make
contact with them and get answers to any questions you have. Since you're a
beginner at this, you might strongly consider using a web host that provides
telephone support. A web host that provides only email support may not be
able to fully answer questions that you have - this applies to sales
questions as well as support questions.
When you make your inquires, keep track of which host responds to you the
quickest. Which of these hosts answers your questions patiently and takes
the time to go over details with you? Do they seem more interested in
getting you to sign up, or do they address topics you have no concern about,
beware of those danger signs.
Signing Up For Your Web Hosting Account
Most web hosts have multiple plans that you can choose from. The trick is to
choose a web hosting plan that provides you the features you actually need,
without choosing a plan that offers you features you don't need, or may
never use. This is probably the most difficult thing a novice will be faced
with when choosing a web host. You'll need to choose a plan that strikes an
even balance between what you need right now and what you may need a month
or two down the road. Your website might remain the same size as it is
today, by next year; however, your site may grow quickly, requiring
additional resources in a relatively short period of time. With
DeepCyberNet you won't
have to worry about this, they supply the most feature, programs, e-mailing
and so on, all at an all inclusive cheap web hosting price.
Consult with your web designer and with your potential new web host about
these issues. Ask you potential web host if it's easy it is to upgrade your
account if you need additional services. Ask if there are any additional
charges if you upgrade your account.
The last thing you should do before signing up for a web hosting account is
to read your web host's AUP (Acceptable Use Policy), and/or their TOS (Terms
Of Service), and/or their SLA (Service Level Agreement). Make certain that
you understand and agree with your new web host's policies, and that your
website does not break any of your new web host's rules and regulations. By
not reviewing your new host's contracts with you, you may find your website
and email shut down without prior notice for breaking a rule you were not
aware of, or you might end up paying for fees you didn't know you were
liable for.
The majority of web hosts require you to sign up for a hosting account by
using your credit or debit card. Some hosts offer online check payment, as
well as paper check payments. Many web hosts accept PayPal. You might want
to ask if your host offers discounts for advance payment. Some hosts offer
substantial discounts if you prepay a year in advance. I don't recommend
this until after you've had some time to experience your new host's level of
service and support.
Unlimited Bandwidth in Web Hosting
Bandwidth explained:
Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer that you are allowed to have for a
hosting package i.e. Let's say you have a web page that is 48KB in size, now
each time a user opens your site and goes to that page S/he downloads 48 KB
of information on to their computer. If a 100 users view that page one time
each then there has been a total of 4800 KB of data transferred from the
server on which your files are stored for the computer of users.
Size of web Page: 48 KB
Number of users who viewed the web page: 100
Total amount of data transferred: 48KB * 100 = 4800 KB
Bandwidth is the term that is used to denote the amount of data that has
been transferred from your web space.
The amount of bandwidth that you require while choosing a host depends on
two factors:
> The size of your site.
> The popularity of your site.
If your site is not very huge and you do not have any audio/video downloads
and it's not very popular i.e. not a lot of people visit your site then you
do not really require a lot of bandwidth, on a average a web site uses up
only 500 MB of bandwidth per month. Or if your site is small but extremely
popular then you might have to go for a web hosting package that offers high
bandwidth.
On the other hand if your web site is huge, providing audio/video downloads,
as well as being very popular then you would certainly require a huge amount
of bandwidth. Let's say you have a video file that is 150 MB in size and in
a single day a 100 visitors download the file. This means that 15 GB of
bandwidth will have been used. If you multiply that by 30 days for the month
it comes to 450 GB.
The unlimited bandwidth controversy
For some time now a lot of hosting companies are supposedly providing
"unlimited bandwidth" for their web hosting packages.
It's absolutely true, you can have unlimited bandwidth. However, you will
need an unlimited amount of money by your side! Jokes apart, if you ever
come across such a host it would be best to turn around and run back the way
you came from.
Just think, if you can get unlimited bandwidth for $25-30 a month then why
aren't big companies like Sun, Microsoft etc. not hosted there? In fact, why
isn't everyone hosted there? For that matter, if unlimited is a standard
feature then why don't all the hosts offer it? Is it because it is expensive
and requires better hardware? No, it's because some hosts are honest and
don't give in to such gimmicks and others are liars. THERE IS NO SUCH THING
AS UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH FOR A FEW DOLLARS A MONTH!
Statistically speaking, a T1 Internet connection (huge broadband) equals
approximately 500GB per month and costs around $1200 per month. So how can
it be possible to get the same or unlimited for $30 a month?
There are a lot of ways you can be duped by these ' unlimited' hosts; here
are just a few of them:
The secret of 'unlimited' is actually buried in the Terms of Service by the
host. Do not be surprised to find that unlimited = 2 GB.
The host may restrict the sort of files that you can host on their server.
Generally image galleries and audio/video files attract a lot more downloads
thereby resulting in higher bandwidth consumption. So if there are no files
of this type, your site won't really require a lot of bandwidth.
Some newly opened hosts use it as a scam. They take your money and after a
few months when their server starts to become slow or reaches its limit,
they run? with your money!
Some hosts outline in their Terms of Service that you can have unlimited
bandwidth as long as you qualify for it. i.e. Your site must use less then,
let's say 2 GB of bandwidth in order to qualify for the unlimited bandwidth
feature. As soon as your site goes over that limit they either start
charging you for it or cut off your downloads altogether.
If a host is using a cheap advertising gimmick like 'unlimited' bandwidth
they maybe lying about a few other things too. Their 'dedicated' support
team could be a single person (the hoster himself in most cases) sitting in
front of a computer and taking your calls.
Do you really want unlimited bandwidth hosting from hosts that have very
limited resources at their disposal? Or, do you want to go for a host that
has spent thousands of dollars on setting up a good network infrastructure,
servers, and a highly qualified and dedicated support team? The choice
ultimately is yours and yours alone.
CHMOD - Understanding File Permissions on a Unix-Based Server
The basic command for changing file permissions in Unix based operating
systems is the 'chmod' command. This command is executed with a set of
parameters after it. With most FTP clients, you can simply select the
filename you want to change the permissions of, right click, and choose the
chmod command.
There are three main groups of permissions when dealing with the chmod
command. The three groups are yourself or owner, your unix group, and
everyone else. A typical chmod command would look like this - 'chmod 755'
This allows you to add, remove or rename files as well as read or edit a
file. It also specifies that your Unix group and everyone else can only read
and edit the file in question. They can't add, delete, or rename the file.
How the numbers in the chmod command work
There are three types of permissions that can be given to a file. They are
read, write, and execute. The read permission is assigned a value of 4, the
write permission is assigned a value of 2 and the execute permission is
assigned a value of 1. So when a chmod command specified the digit 7 as the
first number, it means that all three types of permissions are to be
assigned to it. If a party is assigned a value of '0' then it means it has
no rights whatsoever to a file. '6' tells the server that the user can read
and write to the file but can't execute it. I think you get the idea.
Common permissions to set
Most of your html files will do fine with a permission of 644. Most script
files will need a permission of 755. Any configuration files in a script
package will often need a file permission of 777. Be very careful about
assigning a file permission of '777' for everyone. With this permission, it
means that anyone who gains access to your server will be able to add,
remove, rename, read or edit the file. It is always a good idea with
security in mind to assign the least amount of permissions necessary to get
the job done.
An FTP client can keep things simple
Most people on shared servers will not have access to a command line to be
able to use the chmod command. For most people, changing file permissions
will be done through an FTP client. To do this, right click on the file you
want to alter, and choose the chmod command. You will usually get a popup
that will show nine checkboxes. The will be arranged in three rows. On the
left you will usually see Read, Write, and Execute for the row headings. You
can accomplish the same thing as typing in the numbers above by clicking on
one, two or three boxes for each party. Once you're done, you click the
apply or ok button and the file permissions will be changed.
If you keep in mind that you need to always go with the most restrictive
file permissions possible that still allows your files to execute, and that
there are three parties to define permissions for, you'll do fine. The three
parties again are the owner, group, and everyone else.
Setting up Your Personal Web Server
There are many things to consider when setting up your own server. We
wouldn't encourage a novice for the job. Seek help from web professionals if
you have any queries. Here are some web hosting factors to consider when
setting up your personal server:
- A server license is needed and they are not cheap
- Virus, bugs and spam attacks
- 24-hour maintenance and support
Your website doesn't sleep but you do need your sleep! Who is going to take
care of your website that is hosted in your personal computer while you are
sleeping? Getting 24 hour up- time and support is necessary for your
website; especially if it is a business website! The main advantage Internet
Service Providers have over personal servers is: having web professional
maintenance crew working 24/7 to ensure that web hosting is running smooth
for websites.
Many people will think setting up server hosting is cheaper than getting a
web hosting package. Buying hosting equipment is not cheap for an individual
and just like any other computer equipment, it becomes outdated after a
while. Server companies spend hundreds of thousands on equipment and keeping
up with technology. They buy in bulk, hence having bulk savings. Hence, web
hosting packages are competitive and affordable.
If you are genuinely interested in setting up your own server, do it out of
interest's sake. Otherwise, you will be financially better off getting
hosting packages off bulk- buying server companies.
Handling Your Email Addresses
--Company Email Addresses--
Web hosting companies should provide company email accounts for each person
in your company. Email addresses should appear like this:
yourname@domain.com
lester@somedomain.com
myname@companyname.com
--Web Mails--
Most websites work with web mails. Web-based email enable you to access
email via a web browser such as Internet Explorer. You log into your email
account via the Web to send and retrieve email. You are able to access your
emails from anywhere in the world and it makes checking of emails convenient
and portable. Web mails for your company will most probably be accessed at
www.yourcompanyname.com/webmail
There are other forms of web mail options available such as Yahoo! Mail,
Hotmail and Gmail. These should be avoided like the plague! They will be
spam filtered by most ISPs and if they do make it through, they may get spam
filtered by the recipients e-mail program/service. Lastly, if nothing else,
they give a totally unprofessional appearance.
--Email Forwarding--
Email forwarding allows you to have multiple email personalities. With email
forwarding, you can setup aliases for other email accounts like
billy@mycompany.com forwarded to web-designs@deepcyber.net
billy@myothercompany.com forwarded to web-designs@deepcyber.net
billy@personalwebsite.com forwarded to web-designs@deepcyber.net
It makes tracking of emails easy; especially when you have multiple email
accounts to check on.
--Mailing Lists--
It will be useful if you can send out emails to a large number of users.
Start up with collecting opt-in email addresses from interested parties and
send monthly promotions of your business products and services. Before long,
your mailing list will be your another marketing channel of your business.
Finding a Reliable Host
Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task.
Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!
This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate
market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector.
It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations,
create a list of potential hosts and ask questions....lots of them.
Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you
need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require?
Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only
for yourself or for customers?
Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You
should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup
postings.
In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about
the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to
your needs and which fits your price range.
Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and
accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their
bank account and subject them to an honesty test...offer them the
opportunity to up-sell you needlessly.
If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a
smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation.
Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and
ensure that they offer a knowledge base.
You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness
and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales
and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.
Great Web Hosting - What to Look For!
Web hosting can best be described as a modern-day marriage: none of this
till death do us part stuff, it's more like I'll stick around as long as
your uptime is 100%, you answer my frantic queries instantly, and you charge
me less than a decent latte at Starbucks. What follows is a few tips to help
make the relationship less rocky and possibly prosperous!
First of all, we all need to take a little responsibility and at least
figure out what we think we need from a web host up front. This isn't always
as easy as you might imagine. You don't always know your exact needs ahead
of time, and sometimes these things are difficult to foresee. Your site may
become hugely popular, requiring more bandwidth or storage than previously
thought. You may decide to have data feeds hosted on your site, which will
gobble up resources. On online store can do the same. One way I've found
myself in the position of having to change web hosts is when a technology
you want to use or implement on your site isn't supported by your host. This
will prompt a move.
Ask friends and associates who they use. While their needs may be somewhat
different than yours, basic issues such as support and uptime will be
evident, as will customer satisfaction. Check out several of the web hosting
directories, as they maintain a wealth of current information regarding the
specifics you're interested in. Come armed with a list of things you're
looking for and narrow your choices down using this.
Make sure you can grow with this new host. Not only in the size of your
current sites, but also number of domains and subdomains you can host there.
If you're anything like me, I want to be able to get the most bang for my
hosting buck!
In short, due your homework, check them out, do your part in knowing as
specifically as possible what you're after, and make your choice. This could
be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!
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.
What is a Sitebuilder?
More and more web hosting companies today offer Sitebuilder software that
takes care of all the technical details to getting your website up and live
on the internet. They allow a novice to choose a built in template, select
some colors, throw in some pictures, and add some text. Once these steps are
done, all the novice has to do is publish their website to the internet. All
the hard stuff is taken care of by the Sitebuilder software.
Sitebuilder or traditional web hosting account - which is for you?
If you have never put together a website before, and you have no desire to
dive into the technical details of putting your website online, a
Sitebuilder is probably your best fit. For maximum long term flexibility and
growth potential, learning how to get your website live on a traditional web
hosting account is well worth the effort. You will end up paying less, you
won't be locked into one company, and you will be able to grow your website
as traffic demands it.
The Web Hosting Checklist
When starting out, it is easy to overlook some of the most important factors
in selecting a web host while paying too much attention on great features
which you may not need at the start.
For example, most new webmasters judge a web host by the amount of disk
space they offer. The thinking is generally, the more the better. There are
many other factors to take into consideration. Each factor can be weighed up
according to the features each specific web hosting company offers. Each
company may also offer several different plans. The features from plan to
plan may also differ.
Don't rush
Some deals may look good at first but if one feature that is important
according to your needs is missing, then that deal may not be so good in
your opinion. This does not cast a value judgment on any particular web
host. The deal in and of itself may be good for me for example but not for
you. So do your research and compare different companies and plans until you
weigh up all the factors that are important to *your* needs.
What factors do I consider?
Tech Support - I don't know about you, but I like the feeling of knowing
that support is available when I need it. Test different companies before
you sign up by sending them an email with a question or two. If they respond
quickly, this is a good sign.
Uptime - The more uptime they guarantee, the better. 99% uptime is the
minimum acceptable standard.
Disk Space - Decide how much disk space you will require. A web page with
one logo does not take up much web space at all. Calculate how big your web
site is in relation to the disk space alloted.
Bandwidth - This factor is usually overlooked until the bandwidth limit is
reached. If you go over your alloted bandwidth, you will get a hefty bill.
If you are running a site with lots of downloads, or a site with lots of
images such at a photo post site, your bandwidth will be a lot higher than a
site with mainly text.
CGI Bin - This is now standard with good hosting companies. If you do not
have access to your own CGI Bin, you cannot install scripts and programs.
Perl - If you do not have Perl, you cannot run Perl Programs. Many good
scripts that you buy or get for free are written in Perl. In my opinion, it
would be a limitation not to have the latest version of Perl installed.
SSL - If you intend to accept credit cards orders directly from your
website, you will need Secure Socket Layer included in your plan. This is
one of those easily overlooked features. You might sign up for a plan that
looks attractive for whatever reason, then down the track, you might
discover that you need this feature. If it is not included in your plan, you
might be gob-smacked if the extra monthly charge is $10.00. To use this
feature you need a merchant account. There is no need to make this a
priority if you have no merchant account because you can use a third party
credit card processor.
SSI - Server Side Includes are great if you want to spend minimal time
updating your site. Here's how it works. My site contains SSI's. The left
and right nav menus and the little search engine in the left nav menu are
"included" with an SSI command in the master page template. If I need to
update one of the nav links, there is no need to edit all the pages that
contain the menus. I just edit one file which contains the menu HTML and
upload it to my site. It's awsome.
MySQL - What scripts are you going to run? Some programs require a MySQL
database to run. I had this problem with a particular web host. They wanted
to charge me $10.00 per month for a MySQL database. WOW. I just took out a
new plan with another hosting company for under 10 bucks a month and 5 MySQL
Databases are included in the price. Say no more.
PHP - Many new scripts and programs require PHP support. Again, this feature
can be a $10 extra but most good hosts offer it standard. Imagine if you do
not have PHP support but the latest new free Toplist, Blogging script or
Shopping Cart requires PHP. Again, this feature is almost standard these
days.
DeepCyber.Net 's QuickShoppingCart is an example of a Shopping Cart that
lets you sell products On-line and accept credit cards, all without a
"percentage of sales" fee! https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/ecommerce/cart.asp?prog_id=439960&ci=1802&
Domain Name - What's the point in buying web space if you cannot point your
own domain name to the site? Some companies will help you register a domain
name but you should compare prices and learn how to register your domain
yourself. This way you are in control of your domain name if you ever change
hosts. Can't beat DCN domain name pricing and quality of domain name
management.
FTP Access - Unlimited and unrestricted FTP access to your site is
essential. You will need an FTP program to transfer files.
Control Panel - Not all control panels are the same. Some are easier to use
than others. Some control panels the learning curve is steep while others
are easy. If you select a plan where you cannot preview your control panel
before you buy, you can always use the 30 day money back guarantee to get
out if you are not happy. If they are not offering a working demo of the
control panel, maybe they are not proud of it.
Statistics Program - A good stats program is handy if you want to keep an
eye on how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from,
referrers, top entry and exit pages and so on.
DeepCyber.Net offers
excellent stats programs as standard while others offer basic stats but you
have to pay extra for advanced statistics.
Free Or Not Free -- Its Your Choice
The internet is one of the world's top sources of information, products and
just about anything else you could possibly want. And, if you have spent any
amount of time online, you must have noticed that much of it is free.
Many home business entrepreneurs get their start online using some of these
free resources. In fact, some of them use freebees almost exclusively.
So, just what are these valuable assets that attract so many home business
newbies? Here are just a few:
1. Email - one can get free email accounts just about anywhere (MSN Hotmail,
Yahoo Mail, Google GMail, Lycos) plus tons of others. Actually, free email
accounts can be very useful, but that's another article.
2. Autoresponders - there are many free autoresponders (getresponse, and
freeautobot, just to name a few). Some are better than others but they are a
useful tool.
3. EBooks - You can get free ebooks just about anywhere. These can prove
very valuable as giveaways to get people to do some sort of action,like join
your mailing list.
4. Web Space - Free web space abounds throughout the internet. Most likely,
the ISP you signed up with offers web space for free for you to put up your
own personal web site. You can also get free space at places like Yahoo
Geocities, Tripod, Bravenet, plus tons of others.
And the list goes on. However, today I would like to talk about Web Space.
Free Or Not Free, It's Your Choice.
Many home business entrepreneurs, when first starting out, want to keep
expenses to a minimum (I did this myself). Therefore, just after we join one
or two affiliate programs and find out that we can't get the affiliate web
page into the search engines (because there are probably 5 million
affiliates with exactly the same page) we want to build our own site.
Having your own web site is probably one of the most important steps you can
take to get your home business off to a fast start. Taking the time to find
a good web host like DeepCyber.Net should be equally as important.
Read that last line again.
Why do I say that? Just think about this.
You have just spent the past two months learning html or how to use a
program like FontPage to build your web site. You've been writing your web
pages, putting in images and links to your affiliate web page and maybe even
have made a few forms to get people to sign up for your own newsletter.
All is well and good so far, because it's still on your computer.
So now you go to find a place that will 'host' your site. And, being the
money conscious person that you are, you look for some place free. Your
internet service provider will give you probably 5 megs of space but will
only let you put up a personal site.
So you decide to give another place a try. Bingo, you've found lots of
places that will let you have space on their servers for free as long as
they can put a banner ad on your web pages. A small price to pay you say and
go ahead and sign up.
Great, now you have your own web site up and running, it's a little slow
loading because of the banner ad but you decide that is OK. Now, in order to
get your site closer to the top of your category in the search engines you
decide to start doing link exchanges. Very good, it shows you have been
doing your homework.
Now it's 4 or 5 months later and your site is on page 5 of the search
results, people are joining your downline and signing up for your
newsletter. What a wonderful thing this internet is.
One day you decide to log into your hosting account and change a few things
on your site. But, what's up, you can't log in. You then decide to go to the
search engine and type in the url of your site. Nothing! Error, the page you
are looking for is not available!!!
Just like that, it's all gone. All your hard work, your only means of
getting affiliate signups and newsletter opt-ins has disappeared. What's up
you ask your web host and they tell you that they have changed their policy
and no longer offer free web space. You're back to square one.
Think it can't happen? Think again. It happened to me.
That's right, all my web pages, articles, newsletter archives, classified
ads, everything gone. And, to make things worse, I have been making changes
to the site at the control panel of the web host and therefore didn't even
have a recent copy of most of the pages on my computer. We live and learn!
Had I known all along how inexpensive it is to get good web hosting service
I would never have gone the free route. To make a long story short, for less
than $10.00 per month you can get excellent web hosting services.
I won't make that mistake again, will you?
Randy Justason
Free or Paid Web Hosting?
Just finished your first website? So it's the time to look for some hosting
and make a choice. Your first question probably will be whether to choose
free or paid hosting service. Let's have a look at some advantages and
disadvantages of these solutions.
Free web hosting:
* (+) It's for free. You don't need to pay for domain name.
* (-) Your URL will be something like username.freehost.com or freehost.com/username.
As I noticed above, the advantage is that you don't need to pay for domain.
But note that if you move your website to another provider in the future you
can loose some or all your traffic (there are some solutions how to solve
this problem but it is not the point of this article).
* (-) Your provider will probably include ads to your pages - usually 1 or 2
banners, sometimes popup windows. If you plan to use banner exchange on your
site read carefully their Terms and conditions. Some free hosts doesn't
allow it.
* (-) Free hosts usually allow lower bandwidth then paid hosts and a lot of
them don't offer futures like PHP and MySQL.
* (-) A lot of free hosts change their Terms and conditions during some
time. If your free host offers hosting without ads now, don't be surprised
when banner or popup appears on your site in the future.
* (-) Sometimes happens that free hosts cancel their free service and longer
offer paid hosting only. In this case you have only 2 choices - pay them or
loose your website.
Paid web hosting:
* (+) You can host your own domain. If you decide to change the web hosting
provider in the future, you easily transfer the domain to the new provider
and don't loose your traffic.
* (+) Most paid hosts offer 24/7 support via email or live chat and some of
them provide toll-free phone support.
* (+) You can expect better uptime then on free host. Some paid hosts offer
uptime guarantee.
* (+) Paid hosts usually offer enough disk space and bandwidth. Futures like
PHP and MySQL are standard. Even if you are not programmer you can download
plenty of free PHP scripts from internet.
* (-) Paid hosting coast money :o)
Before you make the decision if choose free or paid host you should answer
this question: How big ambitions do I have with my website? If you are
starting small personal page for your friends consist of a few *.html files
then free host will be sufficient. In case you plan to run serious business
website, need PHP, database and don't want ads on the site I recommend to
look for quality paid host.
What Is Web Hosting?
Many businesses, from one-man-bands to multi-national corporations, have a
web-presence these days. i.e. They have a website telling their customers
about their companies: what they do, where they're based, their company
history, how they're different from their competitors, etc. Many of these
businesses also sell products and/or services online.
If you own a business and wish to have a presence in cyberspace, then you
need to consider buying a package from a web hosting company.
Web hosting refers to the process of renting computer space and bandwidth
(data transfer capacity) from a company so that you can make your website
visible to the outside world.
Put simply, you buy an allocated space on a computer from a hosting company,
then transfer the files of your website to this computer. Your website then
becomes available to users around the world, and this enables them to browse
your website, as well as download files and buy products and services from
you.
Domain Name
First of all, you need to choose a domain name for your website. A domain
name is simply an address for your website. Examples are www.microsoft.com
and www.yahoo.com. Avoid choosing a domain name which is too long or too
complicated for users to remember.
Design Your Website
There are three ways to get your website designed:
1. You can do it yourself. There are many website authoring software
packages available on the market. Two popular packages are Microsoft
Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver. With these programs, you can design
and edit your web pages easily and see instantly how they will look to the
users.
2. Some companies offer an easy way for you to create your website by
providing templates for you to choose from. With this type of service, all
you have to do is choose a layout from a number of pre-defined templates,
select some color, font and graphics options, enter some text, and you'll
end up with a decent-looking website.
3. Get a web design company to do it for you. This is the most expensive
option but you will end up with a more professional and stylish website,
looking exactly the way you want it to look.
Getting a web host
Now that you have chosen your domain name and have designed your website,
you need to find a web hosting company.
There are thousands of hosting companies out there. Search the web for a
company with a good reputation and offers the kind of services you need.
Friends may be able to recommend a reputable company. We recommend
www.deepcyber.net.
Next, select a web hosting package to suit your needs and sign up for an
account. Usually you'll pay for the hosting service by credit card online.
If you have not already registered your domain name elsewhere, you'll have
the option to do so with your hosting company.
Once payment has been processed, you'll receive a confirmation email with
details about your hosting package. Take some time to read this email
carefully as it contains information on how to log on to your hosting
account.
Next you'll have to upload all the HTML pages, graphics and other files on
to your web space. This can be done via the control panel on your website,
or by using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program such as CuteFTP.
Now that your website is online, users from around the world will be able to
view it, so make sure that the information it contains (such as your email
address and telephone number) is up-to-date. This is particularly important
if you will be using your website to sell products and services.
How To Choose A Reliable Web Host For Your Website
Your choice of web host can either promote your business or ruin your
business. You have to be very careful when choosing your web host or you
will be consistently losing up to 80% of your income due to your web host's
inefficiency.
Here are a few quick tips on how to know which web host is reliable,
affordable and right for your website.
1. Check if the web host has a web presence. Face it, if a company claims to
be a web host and they don't have a functional website of their own, then
they have no business hosting other people's websites. Any web host you will
use must have a functional website where you can check for domain
availability, get support and order for their hosting services.
Additionally, you should conduct random checks on their website. If you
visit their site randomly ten times and the site is not available more than
once in those ten times, forget about that company except you want your own
website too to be unavailable almost all the time.
2. Any web host you will use must have an appreciable level of relevant
experience. A minimum of a full year of operation. A new web host will only
experiment with your website and the result may not be good for your
business. Visit the web host's website and read about them. If they don't
talk about their experience, then they don't have it. Just leave them alone.
3. Look out for their present clients' testimonials on their website. Call
or email the clients and ask them questions. If they confirm that the web
host is good, then the company has passed this test. However, if you don't
even find a single testimonial on their website, they probably don't have
any satisfied client. What to do? Just leave them alone.
4. How fast or how well does the company respond to support emails? You can
find out by conducting this small test. Visit the web host's website and
submit or email an enquiry to them. If you don't get a response in 24 - 48
hours, please run away as fast as your legs can carry you. Why? When you
host your website with them and you have a problem, it will take them more
than a month to respond to your support emails or requests.
5. You should not forget to check out their prices. The prices must be
within reasonable limits and their packages must have the features you
desire; adequate monthly transfer, email addresses, MySQL databases, CGI
bin, FTP access, control panel etc. Very high prices don't necessarily
translate into very good services. Don't be fooled by high prices. It's a
common trick, please don't fall for it.
6. It must be easy and secure to make payments to your web host. It is not
advisable to fill in your credit card details when making your payment. You
should rather use a web host that accepts other forms of payment that do not
require you to fill in your credit card details e.g. paypal and egold. If
you are in a country where you don't have easy access to credit card
facilities, it is even better to use a web host that accepts payment in your
local currency. This will ensure that you won't have any problems when you
want to renew your domain and your hosting accounts.
7. Use only web hosts that give 24 hour online access to your account. With
that, you have total control over your domain and your website and you can
change anything including your name servers (DNS) whenever you want.
8. It is better to use a web host that offers additional web services such
as web design, website promotion, search engine submission and website
management. They can be of help to you in future if you have any problems
with your website or you need any additional services.
9. Before you make your payment, read the terms and conditions of the
company carefully. If you don't understand or agree with any of their terms
contact them for more explanations.
10. Finally, I know it may be very time consuming for you to conduct these
tests on the hundreds of web hosts out there before choosing one. I have
therefore taken the pains to analyze hundreds of them. I recommend two web
hosts that have passed our simple tests. I can put my reputation on the line
and guarantee their efficiency, reliability and affordability.
Web Hosts: Helping Us Navigate Through This Future Techno-World
Computers, Internet, Web sites? What do they all mean? Hey, you're probably
not a technophobe, I mean you own a microwave right? Just push a few buttons
and the food cooks itself-easy. Now, they tell you the best way to share
information, have a business, and generally communicate in life, are on the
Web. I don't know about you but for me the Web conjures up visions of a
giant spider whose sole intention is to turn me into a tasty appetizer.
Computers scare me. People say they're the tool of the future, but I find
them to be quite alien, especially compared to my lawnmower! All the
technical jargon associated with these machines, it's like you have to have
a university degree in Information Technology just to turn one on.
The key to solving the riddle is just to go back in time. Not easy?! Think
about our ancestors, the prehistoric cave-dwelling hairy folk. How did they
get the job done each day? Tools? Tools. A man had his stone axe to kill the
wild beast; a woman had a basket to collect fruits and vegetables. Sounds a
little sexist, but fortunately times have changed in a number of ways. In
our modern society the main tool has become the computer and anyone can use
it. In the old days a boy's father would teach them how to throw the axe.
These days Web Hosts exist to help people get acquainted with the Internet
in much the same loving parental role. These companies provide knowledge and
access to all the fundamental ways of taking part in using the space age
super-tool. I've heard that having knowledge about something is half the
battle of getting a job done. Having a Web Host is like meeting your mentor,
the wizard who shows you the simple way to navigate through this new
techno-world.
If you are a small business, a major company, or just an individual looking
to spread a message to the rest of the world, the Internet or World Wide Web
is your necessary gate of entry. Communication through Web Sites and Email
systems is your means to partaking in the 'new' world. Whether you are
searching for information, selling a product or idea, talking to friends, or
just browsing through the 'shop' of life, Web Hosts are here to help you
make the journey as enjoyable as possible. No more scratching your head in
befuddlement, now there's a star lighting the way through our fearful
darkness
The Difference between Great and Mediocre Web Site Hosting Companies
You need to be on the look out for:
1) A web site hosting service that helps you add new domains for a small fee
without having to pay any additional monthly fee. So you can host many
domains and still pay one monthly fee, thus saving you money.
2) A web site hosting service that will help you publish and manage your own
newsletter so that you can regularly follow-up with your prospects and
customers and thereby increase your sales. Look if they give you the option
to publish a newsletter in both HTML and text format. With
DeepCyberNet you can even host just a Blog, or Podcast.
3) A web site hosting service that can set up a number of follow-up auto
responders. So you can automatically follow-up with your prospects and send
them a series of emails one after the other on any day you prefer.
4) A web site hosting service that helps you personalize all your
newsletters and follow-up emails. So you can let all your newsletters and
emails begin with something like "Hi Paul" or "Hi Peter". Most people know
that personalizing emails has proven to increase response rates by as much
as 40% - 50% in some cases. Prospects love it when they receive mails like
this! DeepCyber.Net has a mass marketing, mass emailing product specifically
for this, it's can be found under their Marketing Menu entry.
5) A web site hosting service that helps you set up your own affiliate
program so that other website owners can promote your site or products and
earn commissions on the sales or leads they produce for you.
6) A web site hosting service that gives you the possibility to track the
results of all your advertising campaigns like banner ads, eZine ads, ads in
pay per click engines like Google Adwords or Overture. By using such a
feature you will know exactly how many visitors you are receiving from each
source, but also how many sales you are receiving from each source. This
information will help you make better decisions what to optimize and what to
dump.
7) A web site hosting service that gives you the possibility to sell
multiple items from your web site using a shopping cart that calculate
things like taxes and shipping costs in real time!
8) A web site hosting service that helps you protect your download page if
you want to sell digital products like e-books or software from your site.
Or protect your members only site or signup page so that only legitimate
customers can download your products or sign up for your membership site.
9) A web site hosting service that helps you set up junk mail filters so
that any junk mail that you receive is filtered out before they reach your
account.
10) A web site hosting service that contains a built-in anti-virus software
so that any virus containing emails you receive will be automatically
deleted.
11) A web site hosting service that has great costumer support. Fast
response is important is this field. A good web site hosting service respond
to you within max. 24 hours. At DeepCyber.Net they even show you on site how
many minutes (usually less than 2) you get a response in...
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
A Beginners Guide to Web Hosting
What is web hosting? Whenever you visit a website, what you see on your web
browser is essentially just a web page that is downloaded from the web
server onto your web browser. In general, a web site is made up of many web
pages. And a web page is basically composed of texts and graphic images. All
these web pages need to be stored on the web servers so that online users
can visit your website.
Therefore, if you plan to own a new website, you will need to host your
website on a web server. When your website goes live on the web server,
online users can then browse your website on the Internet. Company that
provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting
providers.
A well-established web hosting provider sometimes hosts up to thousands of
websites. For example, www.DeepCyber.Net is a popular web hosting company
that hosts more than 300,000 websites. For that reason, a web hosting
company need many web servers (essentially, these are computers) to 'store'
the website. And all these web servers are connected to the Internet through
high speed Internet connection and housed in a physical building called
'data center'. In order to guarantee all the web servers are safe, secure
and fully operational all time, a data center is a physically secure 24/7
environment with fire protection, HVAC temperature control, virus
detections, computer data backup, redundant power backup and complete
disaster recovery capabilities.
What are the different types of web hosting? There are different kinds of
web hosting companies out there with different characteristics. The main
types of web hosts can be organized into the following categories:
Shared Hosting
In shared hosting (also known as virtual web hosting), many websites are
sharing the space on the same physical web servers. Depending on the web
host, a physical web server can hosts a few hundred to even thousand of
different websites at one time. You may wonder if a physical web server is
shared by so many websites, will the performance of the web server
deteriorate? In fact, web servers are usually equipped with high-end
powerful computer, therefore it can support up to a certain number of
websites without any problem. But when the web server is overloaded and
exceeded the reasonable number of websites that it can support, then you
will begin to experience a slower response from the web server.
However, a reputable and experience web hosting provider will constantly
monitor the performance of the web server and will add new web servers when
deem necessary without sacrificing the benefits of the website owners. Since
a physical web server is shared (disk space, computer processing power,
bandwidth, memory) by many websites, the web hosting provider can therefore
afford to offer a lower hosting price. For the same reason, websites on the
shared hosting would have to accept slower server response time. Typically,
shared hosting plans start at $5 - $20 per month.
Dedicated Hosting
In contrast to shared hosting, dedicated hosting assigned a specific web
server to be used only by one customer. Since a dedicated web server is
allocated to only a single customer, the customer has the option to host
single/multiple web sites, modify the software configuration, handle greater
site traffic and scale the bandwidth as necessary. Therefore, dedicated
hosting commands a higher premium and typically starts at $70 per month and
can range up to $1000 per month. As a result, dedicated hosting is regularly
used by high traffic and extremely important website.
Co-location hosting
In dedicated hosting, the web server belongs to the web hosting providers
and customers only rent the web server during the hosting period. While in
co-location hosting, the customer owns the web server hardware and only
housed their web server within the web hosting provider's secure data
center. In this way, the customer has full control over their web server and
simultaneously benefit from the 24/7 server monitoring and maintenance
provided by the secure data center. Depending on the monthly bandwidth and
rack space required, typically co-location hosting range from $500 - $1000
per month.
How Multiple Server Hosting impacts your websites uptime
Hosting of web sites has essentially become a commodity. There is very
little distinguishing one hosting company from the next. Core plans and
features are the same and price is no longer a true determining feature. In
fact, choosing a host based on the cheapest price can be more expensive in
the long term with respect to reliability issues and possible loss of sales
as a result of website downtime.
Selecting a host from the thousands of providers and resellers can be a very
daunting task, which may result in a hit and miss approach. But although
hosting may have become a commodity, one distinguishing feature that you
must always look out for is reliability.
At the heart of any hosting company's reliability is redundancy. This
ensures that if a problem exists at one point, there will be an alternative
which ensures continuity as seamlessly and transparently as possible.
Most hosts do employ redundant network connections. These are the high speed
pipes that route data from the server to your web browser. But, redundant
'multiple web servers' have been extremely rare and very expensive,
requiring costly routing equipment which has previously been used only in
mission critical applications of Fortune 500 companies.
However, a very neat but little known Domain Name Server (DNS) feature called
'round robin' allows the selection and provision of a particular IP address
from a 'pool' of addresses when a DNS request arrives.
To understand what this has to do with server reliability it's important to
remember that the Domain Name Server (DNS) database maps a host name to
their IP address. So instead of using a hard to remember series of numbers
(IP address) we just type in your web browser www.yourdomain.com, to get to
your website.
Now, typically it takes at at least 2 to 3 days to propagate or 'spread the
word' of your DNS info throughout the internet. That's why when you register
or transfer a domain name it isn't immediately available to the person
browsing the web.
This delay has stymied the security benefits of hosting your site on
multiple servers, as your site would be down for a couple of days if
something went awry with one server. You would have to change your DNS to
reflect your second server and wait days before the change was picked up in
routers on the internet.
However, the round robin DNS strategy solves this predicament, by mapping
your domain name to more than one IP address.
Select hosting companies now employ the DNS round robin technique in
conjunction with "failover monitoring".
The DNS round robin failover monitoring process starts by a web hosting
company setting up your site on two or more independent web servers
(preferably with different IP blocks assigned to them). Your domain name
will therefore have 2 or more IP Addresses assigned to it.
Then the failover monitor watches your web server (s) by dispatching data to
a URL you specify and looking for particular text in the results. When the
system detects that one of your IP addresses is returning an error, and the
others aren't, it pulls that IP address out of the list. The DNS then points
your domain name to the working IP address/s
If any of your IP's come back online they are restored to the IP pool. This
effectively and safely keeps your site online - even if one of your web
servers is down.
The average failure detection and recovery time with a system like this can
be as low as 15 minutes. This time varies depending on the speed of your
site and the nature of the failure and also how long other ISP's cache
(save) your DNS information.
The time taken for other ISP's caching your information can be manipulated
in the failover monitor by lowering the "time to live" (TTL) cache settings.
These are the settings that other ISP's will use to determine how long to
cache your DNS information.
Of course you must bear in mind how frequently data is
synchronized between your website's servers. This will be the hosting
company's responsibility, and this may become complicated where databases
and user sessions are involved.
The very expensive hardware based failover monitoring systems that point a
virtual IP address to other ISP's, while behind the scenes juggling a number
of unique IP addresses on different servers, is of course the most 'elegant'
solution to multi server hosting.
That way, the whole issue of ISP's caching your information does not come
into play.