Web Hosting – HostGator Web Hosting Review
Host Gator is one of the top hosts in the web hosting field, the over 1.3 million domains hosted by this company represent about 1% of the world’s internet traffic. The company was actually started by the current CEO in his university dorm room in 2002 and has since grown into a giant in the web hosting field with over 5000 servers. HostGator offers a wide variety of services and pricing options, which is great for two reasons: 1) You can tailor the exact plan that suits your needs 2) You have room to grow into a more robust plan as your website grows. To add to their flexibility, Host Gator distinguishes themselves as one of the only hosts that allow customers to pay monthly. (although it will cost you a bit more)
HostGator offers shared hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated server hosting (Windows and Linux) – each one with numerous pricing options depending on your needs.
HostGator Shared Hosting Plans: offers their Shared Hosting customers a number of options depending on their needs and budget. The plans are separated into three categories: Hatchling, Baby, and Business. The most popular of the three being the “Baby” plan which is basically equivalent to the plans offered by other budget hosts. (ie: unlimited domain hosting, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space) The plans range from $4.95/mo* to $12.95/mo* as long as you take a term, on a monthly basis you will pay more and have to pay a small setup fee.
HostGator Reseller Hosting: offers five different products for reseller customers ranging from $24.95/mo* to $99.95/mo*.
HostGator Dedicated Server Hosting: offers four products for their dedicated server customers, ranging in price from $174.00/mo* to $374/mo*.
Customer reviews we found for HostGator indicated a very effective and efficient customer service and technical support team. That is particularly impressive given the fact that they host over 1.3 million domains. Customers reported that they rarely have to wait long for a phone representative and an extremely efficient technical support response to phone calls, chat, and email trouble tickets.
*Pricing may vary. Prices valid as of posting date (January 2009). Pricing may be based on a 24 or 36 month term.
This article is brought to you by Richard, editor of GoodHost.org, for more comprehensive information feel free to visit us and learn more about HostGator Hosting. We specialize in webhosting reviews to help you choose the best web hosting companies for YOU and your needs. We also do our best to keep you up-to-date on the best webhosting deals, webhosting resources, and webhosting coupons on the web.
VPS Hosting Vs Shared Hosting
There are hundreds of reasons that you could be looking to build a website, but if you are even considering a VPS chances are you aren’t looking for a personal blog or a site to host your family tree, instead you might be looking for a place to do some web development, a stable place to host your business website or e-commerce site, or perhaps a site to market a product for your company. What it comes down to for you is Shared Hosting vs. VPS Hosting and whether the costs of each outweigh the benefits
Shared hosting is what most webhosts offer, unless they specify that you are getting your own server or VPS assume that you are getting a shared hosting plan. Shared hosting is exactly what it sounds like, a whole bunch of websites available on the same server, all using the same resources and using just a few different IP addresses amongst them. Many new businesses and people who are starting up personal web pages decide to use shared hosting to cut their expenses, the amount of money that can be saved this way can be significant and the whole process is very easy to use, but what are the costs?
Bad Neighborhood
Your shared hosting account is on a server with a whole bunch of other sites, they may contain content you don’t personally agree with on moral or ethical grounds, or just content that you don’t want associated with your business. People can find out what sites are coming from what servers, and you may be tarred with the same brush. Worse still the other sites may be running malicious scripts and your site could be banned from being accessed, from sending mail or any of a hundred other things that are totally beyond your control.
Greedy Neighbors
Your site will be running on a server getting requests for these other websites, if it turns out that one of them ends up being really popular and gets lots of traffic all at once, your site’s performance will suffer, and if your site’s performance suffers, your users will not be happy. It doesn’t even take a hugely popular site on your server to mess things up, poorly written scripts can eat server resources and leave your site responding slowly or not at all.
Big Fish, Small Pond
Shared hosting will restrict the availability of services, applications and technologies available to you, in addition to often having smaller bandwidth limits than VPS or Dedicated Server hosting plans. This means as your success grows and your website tries to grow with it you may run into serious issues, and the process of transferring a site out of shared hosting and into a VPS is not trivial.
VPS to the rescue! (maybe)
VPS solutions are not perfect, but they do provide many advantages over a conventional Shared Hosting option. If your website represents your business, it is good for your professional image that that website is available as often as possible, and that it responds in a timely manner and is not associated with sites containing illicit or explicit content. VPS Hosting gives you more control, more power, more reliability.
Your website is the online extension of your business, what does your hosting choice say about your company?
If you found this interesting we have a site on Australian VPS Hosting that has some more information on Choosing a VPS Host.
Andrew Mailer is a Web Developer, Systems Admin and all round geeky guy bringing you information and advice on web hosting.
Top 5 Windows VPS Hosting Questions Answered
Chances are you keep hearing people talk about Windows VPS hosting and you have no clue to what it is or why you need it? Well, you have come to the right place. We are going to explain this new hosting service, which is a relatively new concept in the world of technology.
1. What is it?
VPS stands for virtual private server. A virtual private server allows users to divide a server into multiple servers. This is advantageous because each virtual server is capable of running a separate operating system. Virtual networks can also be individually rebooted if problems occur.
2. Why would I use this type of hosting?
Previously, there were two options that individuals and businesses had for in regards to hosting services: shared and dedicated. Windows VPS offers the best of both by allowing individuals to have a private server without incurring the high costs of a dedicated server. With Windows VPS hosting you can have full control of your websites with super-user access with at a significantly decreased price tag. This has often been compared to “managed dedicated hosting” because of the security monitoring, backups and updates that accompany the hosting service.
3. How many websites can I have with this type of hosting service?
Windows VPS hosting allows you to run as many websites on your server as you can manage. The only factor that dictates the number of websites that can be ran on a VPS is the amount of disk space that comes with your server. Different VPS hosting packages are configured with different amounts of space. Obviously, some websites (depending on the complexity) will take up a larger amount of space on your server than others.
4. How do I control my virtual server?
When it comes to a VPS, you are always in control. VPS hosting services allow you to access and manage your websites remotely from your desktop. Most hosting services install a control panel on your server that acts as a dashboard, which can be easily manipulated. One of the advantages of having a VPS hosting account is the around the clock technical assistance that comes with it. A specialized VPS technician can answer any questions you might have about your new server.
5. What programs can I install on my VPS?
Different hosting companies allow you to install different programs on your VPS. You are the administrator of your own server and therefore can install any program on your server.
Charles P. Preston
Top 5 Cheap Web Hosting Service Features
If you’re looking for a cheap web hosting service, there are many companies that offer low monthly rates to host (store) your site. Some examples are Yahoo, Bluehost, Network Solutions and Hostgator, just to name a few. Of course, not everyone is looking for the same webhosting features, but are all offers the same? The answer is no.
Believe it or not, there are web hosting companies that have millions of websites on their servers. If you multiply that by the average monthly fee of around ten dollars a month, that adds up to some serious cash flow! No wonder they are able to offer special deals to new subscribers with all the bells and whistles.
The information that follows is based on the widely used Linux server webhosting packages, although some firms offer Windows web hosting also. Forget about the difference here, as it will not affect you, unless you are an advanced user and intend to create your site using ASP, FrontPage, the .NET environment, Windows Streaming Media, Access, MSSQL, or any of the other Microsoft technologies, in which case, you probably need to use a Windows host.
Remember that a web host is simply a company that provides a storage area for your website. Along with this service, they usually provide a variety of obviously necessary and other nice to have add ons. Some of these include, bandwidth, disk space, a sitebuilder, free website templates, customer and technical support, MYSQL databases, POP email accounts, Fantastico, statistics like Webalizer or referrer logs, more than one hosting plan and of course other features too numerous to mention.
More specifically, we all want and need to save money and we don’t want to waste it, so, based on what is discussed on internet forums and elsewhere the most, here is what to look for when searching for the best cheap web hosting plan. However, right away, it would be advisable to ensure you are not paying more than $10 a month for hosting, because it is not necessary unless you want extra special management controls. We’ll also assume that you only want one website, but if you plan to create more in the future, best to get a plan that allows several or unlimited domains.
For the list that follows, one point should be given for each of the 5 items if the web host has these features. When researching hosting companies, a total score of 4 is very good, but 5 is excellent.
Top 5 Cheap Web Hosting Service Features
1. Customer Service and Technical Support – does the company offer email, phone and live chat (at their website) 24 hours a day and 7 days a week (24-7)? Do they reply to your questions within 24 hours or within minutes using live chat? How would you know? Try them out, even if you’re not a customer yet – send them an email or try their live chat. Or, go to business forums like the Warrior Forum and search for similar discussions. If they have these features, then add 1 point for this company.
2. How long have they been in business? At least 1 year? Go to Google and type in “Who Is” and type in the company name, like xyz.com and see when their creation date was – if it was more than a year ago, you can at least know they have been in business for a while and will hopefully be here to stay. I would give them 1 point if they have been in business for at least 2 years to be on the safe side.
3. Do they offer unlimited bandwidth? Bandwidth can be best described as gas for a car. If your website runs out of bandwidth nobody will be able to visit it. 1GB of bandwidth is equal to over 100,000 hits. The average website uses less than 2 GB of bandwidth a month. Your bandwidth number used will normally reset back to zero on the first of every month.
Similarly, do they offer unlimited disk space? The more disk space you have the more files, pages, emails, and everything else you’ll be able to use and store. Yes, unlimited sounds excessive I know, but if they offer it, better safe than sorry. If the company offers unlimited in both cases, give them one more point.
4. Guarantees – do they offer a money back guarantee, if for any reason, you want to cancel? If it is at least a 30 day guarantee and they will refund 100% of your money, that’s good. Also, do they guarantee your site’s uptime, in other words, that it will be live on the internet all the time, or over 99.9% of the time? If that doesn’t happen, will they give you a full refund for that month? If the answers are yes to both of these questions, then add 1 more point.
5. Do they have Fantastico Deluxe? This program will allow you to install over 50 scripts instantly. Examples are WordPress, Joomla, discussion boards, ecommerce, polls and so on. Most people these days build websites based on WordPress because of it’s search engine optimization features and available plugins, so using fantastico makes it easier. Give them one point if they provide fantastico at no extra charge.
And yes, there are some free web hosting plans out there, but do they place ads on your website? Do they offer 24-7 customer service? Will Google view your site the same if you are not willing to pay for hosting each month (they know which sites are free)? Frankly, are you serious about your internet site and are you treating it as a business? If so, then you should be willing to pay out a few dollars a month for an essential service. Also, if you want to build more than one domain, do they let you build them under one account? Not likely. All in all, it is advisable to skip the free webhosting for life offers out there.
So, there you have it. If you watch for these five recommended cheap web hosting features, you should be able to find one heck of a good home for your website.
If you truly wish to find a Cheap Web Hosting Service quickly, then visit http://onepennyhosting.com You’ll find a super discount on web hosting from a top web host.
Top 5 Benefits of Windows VPS Hosting
A Windows VPS (virtual private server) may be exactly what you need if your business is too small for an expensive dedicated server but too large for a shared hosting web solution.
1. Managed Backups
Particular hosting packages will manage your backups for you. Your server will be backed up daily to ensure that you can restore to how it was on any particular day. All it takes is a request to the technical department and viola- your server is back.
2. System Updates
Have you spent endless hours trying to update your server to keep your operating system safe and secure? Don’t spend one more minute on it. With Windows VPS hosting you system updates are managed daily as well. Your server will be updated as soon as new updates are released.
3. Capacity Monitoring
It can be hard to tell how much resource usage you are actually requiring at any given moment. Take the guessing out of the game with Windows VPS hosting. The hosting System Center will track your usage and recommend what hosting package will fit your needs and reduce extra costs.
4. Experts at Your Fingertips
By using Windows hosting you will have all the support you need whenever you find yourself in a jam. Most companies have twenty-four hour support and can walk you through anything related to the server.
5. Availability Monitoring
How do you know if your server is on its way to a breakdown? You typically don’t. Avoid unforeseen problems through Windows VPS hosting. Hosting companies will manage your server’s availability and be sure to alert you when there may be a potential problem with your server. Don’t be left in the dark!
As you can see, there a ton of benefits that come along with this type of hosting solution. What are you waiting for? There is no better time to switch from shared hosting than now.
Charles P. Preston
Tips to Secure Your Domain
As the domain name is a huge thing for your e-business, there is definitely a need for you to secure it. By taking necessary steps, you can secure your domain and can protect it from unauthorized users. Here are a few ways through which you can secure your domain.
Trademark your domain: A good way through which you can secure your domain is through the means of trademark law. A trademark is a symbol or word used to recognize the services or source of goods provided to customers.
With a trademark right, you can get away from those who allege that it violates their trademark and put an endeavor to take it from you through legal proceedings. A trademark also gives you the power to make use of your trademark rights against those who use identical domain names just to divert and attract your customers. However, it is important to note that, trademarks are complicated and hence it is important for you to be sure that you gain sufficient information about trademarks first. Taking the help of an attorney can help you in the process of trade marking your site.
Centralize your domains: The other thing which you can do to secure your domain is to centralize all the domains. This applies to people who have multiple domains. By consolidating all your domains into one centralized account can also help you update all the information with ease. However, it is important to make sure that you list yourself as the first contact on all of your domains that you centralize.
Lock your domain: Locking a domain precludes the transfer of your domain to anyone else. Failure to do this may result in automatic transfer of your domain to another party, in the event that the registrar is unable to contact you.
Change your password: To secure your domain, you need to change the password on a regular basis. A period of 90 days (three months) is adequate to change the password.
Secure WHOIS information: WHOIS is a database containing all the domain registration contact information which has to be made available to the public by the ICANN- recognized (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) registrars. To keep your information confidential from spammers, hijackers and potential hackers, it is better to use a service registration that is through a private agency, which keeps your contact information confidential and provides you with alternate contact information and can forward important mails such as overnight or first class mail.
These were some tips through which you can secure your domain. Keep in mind the importance of domain to your business, it becomes mandatory for you to secure your domain.
Myhosting.com takes pride in offering a range of competitively priced web hosting services, including multiple domain hosting. This Web host service allows you to redirect Web visitors a Web server level and supports top-level domains and sub-domains. Know more about the company’s services by visiting myhosting.com or calling 1-866-289-5091.
Tips to Choose the Best Web Hosting Company For Your
Tips to Choose the Best Web Hosting Company For Your E-Business
If you are into e-trading market then, the main concern goes for your website. The website will be the way for your business to interact actively with the niche market. Therefore you need to be very particular while you are planning to launch the website for your business. When launching comes into the picture, then automatically the tension of website hosting services Provider Company comes into the picture. A web hosting services provider firm provides the accessibility to access the website in the World Wide Web.
Purpose of Web Host:
Web hosts are the companies that offer space on the servers that they own and offer its clients to use those. It provides the internet connectivity to the data centers that they own and also to the data centers and the connectivity that they do not own. Since web hosting gives you an opportunity to grab a space in the huge World Wide Web therefore in order to launch the website, you need to be a bit more careful!
Thus, web hosts play a major role to increase the visibility of your website in the online world. The visibility then gets turned into popularity. Due to the popularity, the websites gets the quality visitor from the web market, which ultimately helps in enhancing the business. However, there are certain issues that need to be resolved before relying blindly on any web hosts. Factors like the monetary constraint, the up-time etc. is needed to be analyzed before contracting any of the web hosts.
Revising Factors to Select a Web Host:
While choosing the web hosting company India, you need to revise few factors that will ultimately help you in upraising your company’s online reputation. The measuring factors are:
* Cost Factor:
It gets the highest priority because people prefer to choose the website hosting services Provider Company based on the above factor. A common mentality is to opt for the company that offers cheaper website hosting services without even thinking about the quality. But just imagine if some company will serve you with the best server speed then, why will it charge less? So, rather than compromising your requirements just because of money, if you are really concerned for your business then, try to acquire the best web hosting company in India.
* Performance of the Company:
Now, when you are dealing with World Wide Web you need to be very fast. While you are online, you will be required with the quickest response. Just think once, will you enjoy if during your productive hours you get the busy error message from the server? In order to avoid the situation, hire a web hosting company in India that prefers top of the line machines and also supports a supplement device that can assist in case of any major failures.
* Customer Support:
Check the web hosting company’s service timings. It can be easily checked by sending your query to the customer support service team and then waiting for their reply to come. Note the time duration of their reply so that you can better rely on the company.
Check the web hosting company in India based on the above stated three constraints and then decide where to move on. Your website will act as an essence to your business then!
The Need For Web Hosting
Web hosting provides internet users with online systems for storing information, videos, images or any other content accessible to the public via the web. These systems are provided for by the web hosts, companies which deliver space on their own servers for use by their clients as well as providing internet connectivity, typically in a data center.
Once a database or web site is setup, the client will be able to easily access their server space using a web publishing tool or a file transfer protocol tool. Web hosting is the most widespread hosting service. It allows your website to be accessible on the internet 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Without web site hosting resources no web site can exist, which makes the provision of such services a really lucrative business.
A server computer is not a master copy of anything. No doubt it runs on its own but should a disk fail, the host will buy another one and install it and wait for the client to upload another copy of the pages. Server monitoring ensures your data is safely kept and that your hosted websites maintain maximum operational status. Connectivity to the data centers is supplied from diverse telecommunication carriers representing in excess of 25GBps bandwidth in total. Bandwidth is the measurement of the amount of data transmitted over an internet connection in a given time. The majority of web hosting companies normally set monthly limits.
Choosing a server requires a great deal of research. You have to choose the type of host that you want after which you need to conduct further research by reading on web host reviews that turn up in the search engines. Then you need to choose an appropriate domain name. If you expect a lot of visitors, do not go for the cheap hosting package as this would be detrimental to your business.
Website hosting can be cheap, reliable and fast. Web hosting plans normally come with full email support with unlimited email aliases and responders. Website hosting and editing has never been this easy. Add or delete pages, change navigation labels, and add links wherever you need them. Reseller hosting, on the other hand, includes hosting unlimited number of domains. Reseller hosting seems like it is here to stay.
Free web hosting is convenient but it has its own drawbacks. Here the clients are usually required to permit the server to run advertisements on their websites. However, this can be very cumbersome and annoying for visitors. If the free host supports itself through money from banner advertisement or other revenue sources directly from the free hosting service, then they will last long in business provided they are not bothered by people who abuse the host server with spam or hacking.
Shared hosting is the most basic level of hosting, where numerous web sites are shared on one server. Despite its cheapness and popularity, this type of hosting cannot handle large amount of storage or traffic. It provides each website with redundant connectivity and guaranteed up time. It is good for hosting small scale, e-commerce sites and static web pages. All in all, it is a beginner’s hosting server. This is especially so when the webmaster is still uncertain of his wants, storage space requirement or the number of visitors expected. You can upgrade your hosting plans to meet your requirement as and when the need arises. If you want to host your personal or small business website or maybe a blog, you can consider windows hosting. It is quite cheap.
Dedicated hosting, albeit expensive, is a system whereby you have the whole machine or disk to yourself. If ever your server were to fail, you will have to restart it. This can set you up for several hundred dollars a month depending on the features as well as the level of support you want include in the package. However, it is indispensable for sites with high demands.
Mohamad Ali
The Difference Between Plain Hosting and Cloud Hosting
Web hosting or plain hosting refers to utilizing a server to host a website. This hosting service enables a site to go live on the internet and let the people who are online see all the text and images provided on that particular website.
It used to be just plain hosting of a site. Today, however, there exists what is known as cloud hosting. The term may sound new to you but you may actually be using it without your knowledge.
Google is a pioneered in cloud hosting. The cloud actually refers to an extensive computer infrastructure that Google utilizes especially in most of its operations including the search engines.
By cloud hosting, it means a website is being hosted on a clustered or group of servers. Through this method, more than one server supports a site’s online operations giving it more power with little chances of a crash or other server-related problems. In other words, a website takes advantage of a number of servers in managing its security features, load balance and hardware resources and in real time at that.
With this type of hosting, a website can expand easily unlike when using a single server or shared server which has certain limitations. Lesser problems can be experienced by website owners and publishers owing to the scalability of this option.
Less cost is also involved which can really be a major advantage. The reason for its cost effectiveness is that cloud hosting companies charge users only for every use. Only the quantity of the computing power is what’s considered similar to what power and water companies do. There’s no longer any need to reserve power for server because cloud hosting providers can easily meet the requirements of websites on time.
In terms of security, companies still have to make sure they have an effective strategy for protecting their valuable data. This is one area where they should invest in training their people. An important step to take as well is to reach an agreement with the cloud hosting service to encourage them to be transparent in their operations and to assure clients of immediate action should troubles occur that can affect online operations.
Cloud computing and hosting have become an integral part of the IT industry in the recent years. In fact, this has led to the entry of more companies providing such service. Among the major groups in this field today are the GoGrid, Amazon, RakeSpace, Mosso, FlexiScale, GridLayer and NetDepot.
Reports have it that startup companies are opting for cloud hosting nowadays rather than build their own IT infrastructure or data centers which can be very expensive. Apart from the appliances, getting manpower to oversee them adds to the expense. Whereas by going for the cloud, organizations can just leave their server needs to these services on the internet and pay only for the computing power that they use.
For those conscious about their budget but aim to create powerful websites, this route is indeed highly recommended.
For information on dedicated servers, visit ServerSchool.com, your place for dedicated servers
Shared Web Hosting
Shared web hosting is one of the more common forms of hosting, but
its also not quite as effective as some others. Shared hosting basically
means that the website is on a shared server that shares space with
other sites. While this is effective for more simple sites, it might not
work well for larger, database type websites or web pages with tons of
visitors. Some more well known companies now sell server space for
web hosting purposes, and make a good choice for people who want to
set up a website but dont have the resources or funds to do so on
their own dedicated server. Shared server web hosting is a good
starter hosting service to get your feet wet.