Friday, December 19, 2008

The Top Web Hosting Companies

The Top Web Hosting Companies
By Astrid Hermanssen

Many web hosting companies seem to come and go, sometimes within the same year. If you are looking for a reputable company to host your site, consider one of the following companies.

The Search for Long Term Web Hosting Companies

In your quest for the perfect web hosting company, it's best to be cautious of the many new companies offering their services. In your search for reputable companies, you need to do a little research on your own.

For instance, find out if the company has an actual office address. Do they offer 24 hour tech support? Ask what happens if you exceed your bandwidth. Don't ignore the small companies either. Just because the big companies have thousands of customers, doesn't mean they care about your website concerns more than the little guy. Research any web hosting company thoroughly; your website will depend upon it!

To get you started... the following companies have been around for quite a long time and have been through the good and bad that commonly goes with web hosting. Some of these companies may be familiar to you already but don't dismiss the ones you haven't heard before. Why? All of them offer a basic package available for under seven dollars a month!

Go Daddy

This is a very popular company and it has been around since 1997. This company does not outsource any of its services and has more domain names under registry than any other service provider. In 2004, it was ranked eighth in the top 500 fastest growing private companies.

Blue Host

Blue Host began in 1996 and has offered many solutions to businesses and individuals with their web hosting needs. This service provides reliable hosting, and at a fraction of the cost of some of their competitors.

Dotster

Dotster was found in 1995 and has more than three million domain names under their management. Dotster is a leader in web hosting, domain registration, and online marketing.

Lunar Pages

Lunar Pages was formed in 2000, and has multiple data centers throughout the United States. They also have a high volume call center and satellite technicians across the country. Lunar pages offers domain hosting, dedicated hosting, and some of the best online security available.

1&1 Internet

This international web hosting company has over 7.7 million customers worldwide and is still growing. This company offers everything from domain hosting to e-shops. This company is the world's largest provider of web hosting services.

Host Monster

Host Monster began in 1996 and hasn't looked back since. With almost a half a million domain names, this company is providing superior service to businesses and individuals that simply cannot afford for their site to be down.

This is just a small sampling of the great web hosting companies online today. And true, many companies are offering hosting for unbelievably low prices. However, if your site is not up and going, a cheap fee is worth nothing. Take the time to research the sites you are considering. It can really save you money in the long run.

You need the best web host provider so that your site is always up and ready to receive your site visitors. Go to http://www.WebHostReviewer.org now for detailed web hosting reviews.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Astrid_Hermanssen

IX Web Hosting Review



IX Web Hosting Review
By Bob Willis

IX web hosting first came into existence in the year 1999 and has since carved a remarkable name for itself in the hosting industry. The company has some very attractive hosting plans to offer that would suit a diverse set of clients and businesses across the world. The company has shown consistent improvement in terms of their performance and reliability over the years and boasts of hosting over 1, 70,000 domains. Furthermore, IX web hosting has managed to garner some amazing customer reviews and positive ratings which reflects higher levels of customer satisfaction. The company's customer service is equally impeccable which further enhances the professional image of the company in a competitive hosting industry.

Their plans are essentially cost effective and are aimed at offering value for money services. The company has designed their plans in a way that allows the customer to save money especially if multiple domain names are hosted. Their billing cycles range from quarterly, semi-annual to annual as well as 2 yearly; which thereby makes the payment options highly flexible.

If the user wishes to host more than one domain or multiple domains; then he has an option to host with their single hosting plan (like the Expert plan or higher). Customers would be pleased to discover that the company does not charge any additional fee for removing, adding or changing hosted domains or sub domains. In fact, the easy to use control panel makes domain management a breeze.

In order to enhance customer satisfaction and reinforce confidence among potential customers, the company offers a 100% money back guarantee inclusive of the set up fee.

The company offers high levels of customer support and even help users with CGI scripts, upload problems or FrontPage, either by phone or Live Chat Service. With IX web hosting, customers get a generous 200,000 MB of web space at just $3.95 per month. Their unlimited disk space offer is included in the multiple domain hosting plans which is priced at just $12.95 per month. All this is available at a zero risk 100% complete money back guarantee, inclusive of set up fee.

Their data enter is located in Hopkinsville, KY and features state of the art CISCO routers, high-end security mechanisms and highly advanced equipment. The company utilizes 5 redundant fiber-optic loops to connect their data center.

In the light of the above, you can be assured of hosting your websites in the safe hands of IX web hosting. The company is here to stay and promises peak performance delivery.



HostingCoupons lists web hosting coupons, deals, discounts, savings and exclusive promotions from the top web hosts. You will find the best of web hosting companies listed there including the most recommended web hosts and domain registrars - godaddy, bluehost and hostgator. It covers blog discussions and topics like web hosting discussions and hosting reviews.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Willis

Tips on Domain Name Choice

Tips on Domain Name Choice
by: Clare Lawrence

By Clare Lawrence 3rd November 2003 Clare is the CEO of Discount Domains Ltd a leading UK Domain name registration service.

Before buying your domain name, give some thought to the followng:-

1) If possible use your sites name as the basis of your domain name e.g www.discountdomainsuk.com for Discount Domains UK. This might seem common sense but not every site follows the convention. If you use your name in your URL it will be much easier for your customers to find you.

2) Generic names
if you can register a generic domain such as toys.com that�s great, but most of these have already gone. Also getting ranked in the search engines is likely to be harder. Selected a domain closer to your market segment will cut down the competition. E.g toyplanes.com

3) Hyphenated Names
Its easy to forget the hyphen! Which is the problem, particularly if your customer remembers your name but not your URL. Though on a positive note hyphenated names are less likely to be registered already.

4) If the .com or .co.uk extension is not available then consider the alternative TLD ( Top level domain types) such as .net or .biz. If your domain name has already been registered then approach the owner and ask if they�ll sell. They may accept a 100. If you ask, they can only say no.

5) Plurals. Very often a domain name will be free in the plural but not in the singular form. It's a personal choice, but if your prefered choice of domain name is not available you might be stuck.

6) Short or Long domains
A short domain name is more memorable, but less likely to be available. A longer domain is harder to remember, but can contain more keywords which is important as some of the search engines, use keywords in a domain name as part of the search algorithm.

7) Which Top Level Domain Type - .com, .co.uk , .net etc This is a question I am often asked. There is no evidence that any domain name type is given preference by the search engines. However some search engines such as Google, have local searches e.g www.google.co.uk which do select local content. Customer often get re-assurance from seeing a local TLD as they know they are dealing with a local company etc. You can, of course, register all of them!

8) Variations If your prefered domain name is not available then its always worth trying a prefix my e.g mydomains.com or suffix e.g domains4U.com etc

About the author:
Clare Lawrence is CEO of Discount Domains Ltd � A leading UK provider of Domain name registration and Web Hosting services. Please feel free to re-publish this article provided this reference box remains together with a hyperlink to http://www.discountdomainsuk.comClare can also be contacted on clare@discountdomainsuk.com

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How to Choose a Web Hosting Company?

How to Choose a Web Hosting Company?
by: Karolis Petreikis

Nowadays, anybody can afford to order a feature-packed web hosting plan for next to nothing; however, affordable price is not the only criterion which should be considered when purchasing web hosting services. In this article, I'll explain the basics of what you should look for in choosing a web hosting company, not just concentrating on the best price and features, but also on reliability and honesty. You're investing your money and effort into finding paying customers and you wouldn't like to lose them in order to save a few dollars per month on a web hosting service.

When looking for a web hosting company, it doesn't matter if this is just for the inception of a web or the move of an established site; you need to consider a large selection of criteria to determine which company to go with:

Customer support
Website hosting service isn't just storage or bandwidth. Based on personal experience and that of others, even a top-notch service is worthless without customer support. If you own a business website, your hosting provider needs to be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem; otherwise, you may end up losing customers and money.

Downtime guarantee and service monitoring
Having a personal website go down is a minor inconvenience; having a business website go down is a serious matter. What amount of profit would you lose if your site had been down for a week? Long downtime may be very harmful to today's companies which spend large amounts of money on advertising their websites. Essentially, there are two rules regarding reliability that one should look at:

1. You should check if there is an uptime guarantee offered. A truly service-oriented provider will also give a money-back guarantee, offering a discount or free service as compensation for downtime. Any company which avoids taking responsibility won't put much effort into the service.

2. I definitely wouldn't go with a company claiming 100% uptime, as there is no such thing as a server with 100% uptime. If anyone ever claims their server has a 100% uptime they are either lying or they don't perform the necessary upgrades that prevent a machine from being compromised.

Reputable web hosts will post statistics on their site: What is the frequency of interruption? How about the average percentage of downtime? If these aren�t posted, ask; if the answer isn�t forthcoming, that should be a warning sign. If you still go with a host which doesn't monitor servers, you'll have to do the monitoring yourself. I recommend http://www.siteuptime.com, as it's one of the best monitoring services available for free in the market today.

Backups
There is no host which is safe against different types of technical and programical failures, so make sure that the company runs scheduled backups. The other advice would be always having a backup of your website yourself, as you never know what might happen. cPanel, which is the most popular web hosting management software at this time, has a very comfortable backup-making tool. It allows you to backup files and databases quickly and easily, so backups are no longer a problem.


Acceptable use policy
Web hosts may have 200-300 or more clients per server; there is no exact number, as companies have different hardware and each hosted website has different resource usage. There always is a possibility that a few of those customers host illegal content. There are web hosts who have had their servers unplugged, resulting in their clients websites going down. I'm sure you don't want to put your business at risk and have your website hosted on the same server together with illegal pornography and software sites, so check host's acceptable use policy to find out, if the host takes care of what's hosted on their servers.

Hosting your site on an uncared-for server will also result in a low speed. If somebody on the same server sends spam, the server's IP address will be blacklisted and you'll have serious problems as recipients stop receiving your emails. Use the "Spam database lookup" feature on www.DNSstuff.com to check if a web hosting company is blacklisted. Spam is being sent almost everywhere, so having one or two red records isn't that bad; but, if there are more, it may become a problem later on.

Unlimited bandwidth and web space
In web hosting industry, the adage "you get what you pay for" is almost universally applicable. Do not fall for hosts offering unlimited allowances, as there is no unlimited bandwidth, nor unlimited web space. Host's pay for each GB of bandwidth themselves. Hard drives also aren't free, so how can they say it's unlimited? They simply are performing false advertising in order to attract customers. The average website doesn't use more than 1GB of bandwidth per month; the customer is happy as he bought something "unlimited" and the host gets a new customer, which won't cost them any more than $1-2 USD per month. But imagine what would happen if I had a website, burning much more bandwidth than an average site does, and I signed up with a hosting company offering unlimited traffic? The host would simply suspend my account and tell me, that it was using too much bandwidth. There even are companies which offer unlimited bandwidth and have a statement on their terms of service, explaining that unlimited bandwidth means 40GB, for example.

Will you really own your domain name?
When you buy a domain name together with a website hosting package, make sure the host will register the domain name under your name. It usually should be written in their FAQ, but, if there is no such information, simply contact them. This will also give you an opportunity to check how fast their customer support team replies to inquiries. If the hosting company registers domains under someone else's name, you may have problems switching hosting providers later. If you were in such situation, you would have to file for a Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), which costs much more than both domain name and web hosting service together.

Control Panel
For ease of maintenance, a feature called a Control Panel is a necessity; this tool will normally allow for regular maintenance, be it email mailbox additions/deletions, password resets, web additions, web count reports, statistics and so on. If the site is for any sort of business, this is an absolute must. The most popular web hosting management software currently available is cPanel. It's a next-generation web hosting control panel system that allows you to manage your domain through a web interface. The idea is to transfer as much of the control of managing your web site to you; you have the ability to manage all aspects of e-mail, files, backup, FTP, CGI scripts, and web site statistics.

Value-added services
Hosting companies offer different value-added services in order to set themselves apart from the competition. Of course, these are an advantage, but a common mistake customers make is choosing a host just because it offers many value-added services which won't be used anyway. Some of the really useful features are:

1. Auto-installer script � Auto-installers will save you time if you are going to install a forum, image gallery, content management system, etc. Installation procedures on an auto-installer script take seconds and can be performed by novices without the need of doing difficult tasks usually associated with installations.

2. Online website builder - It lets you design a website in a few minutes without having any creation software and knowledge. One very powerful website builder on the market is Site Studio; this editor allows for ease of use, full control of color schemes and themes, one-click publishing, and an array of templates to use.

The last tip
In this article, I've mentioned only a few warning signs which are worth considering. You should know yourself that price and allocations aren't as important as the quality of service; if the budget is absolutely limited, then the price can be a valid criterion, but otherwise it shouldn�t receive much credence.

By going through this article and asking questions, you can narrow down the list of web hosts to the point where a good, sound decision can be easily made.

About the author:
Karolis Petreikis is the CEO of http://www.uphosted.com- a company that provides reliable hosting services for both individuals and businesses.
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Do It Yourself Website

Do It Yourself Website
by: David Andrew Smith

If you are just starting out in your new business and you decide that a website could be a valuable addition to this business how do you go about getting one up and running? You have two basic options really. Do it yourself or employ an individual or company to do it for you. Which option you take depends upon your own confidence in acquiring the skills necessary and the amount of funds you can divert to hiring in a company. If you have sufficient funds then hire in a company as this will enable you to devout all your time to developing your core business. If you don�t then you will have to do it yourself. So how do you go about it?

You will require no or little knowledge of HTML as you can purchase a whole package from a web hosting company which should include some form of website developing software and your domain name plus the hosting of your website. Give some thought to your domain name. It should be easy for people to type in and remember. Not too long, succinct and preferably no hyphens. So you have chosen your domain name and your hosting service now you must develop your site. Again give some thought to this. How many pages you are likely to produce, how many links you will need. What sort of information is going on each page. If you are completely new to this then I would suggest that using your site editor software you produce a first draft and publish it. You can always modify everything later as you go along. This will give you your first website which you can then submit to the search engines albeit not exactly what you want or one that is going to attract visitors.

Now you need to do quite a lot of research on the internet as to how to make your site visitor friendly and search engine friendly. Here you will discover the importance of good content, changing content, appropriate keywords, backward links, article writing and good copy on the website. Taking this information on board will enable you to restructure and rewrite your site over a period of time, probably many times. However all the time this learning process is going on your site is actually published on the Web so is likely to start being trawled by search engines and getting indexed even if it doesn�t sky rocket through the rankings. The most important thing to do from the outset is to write good content that will be of interest to your visitors. If it holds the attention of your visitors and gets them to contact you then it will likely be of equal interest to the search engines. Do not produce a site that is written with the search engines in mind. It is your visitors who are important and by following a few simple rules that are published all over the Web your site can become very attractive to visitors and to search engines also. Keep the site textually based, there is no point in having very flashy graphics as these are not noticed by the search engines and often annoy visitors who want to get at the information they are after as quickly as possible and not have to wait for some animated introduction to finish before they can enter the actual site.

Having put into practice all the advice that is out there you should have put together a pleasing and appealing website that visitors and search engines like. Each day or week you add more content and develop more links and you will gradually climb up the rankings. The last piece of advice I would give is start writing and submitting articles. One or two a week would be excellent over a year or two. Once your articles start being published you will see an immediate leap in the number of links back to your site and a subsequent rise in the rankings if your content is also good. Aim to produce over time several hundred articles if possible. The more you write the more links back to your site you will develop and the more visitors you will get as well as boost your rankings in the search engines.

About the author:David Smith is the owner of http://wesparkle.co.uka contract cleaning company which specialises in the care and maintenance of natural stone flooring and tiles Circulated by Article Emporium

Build and Maintain Websites For Profit

Build and Maintain Websites For Profit
by: J. Stephen Pope

Even with limited knowledge and experience, you can
build and maintain websites for profit. Here are
just some ways you can do so.

1. Develop Websites for Local Businesses
Approach local business persons and sell them on the necessity and financial benefits of having a
professional website. Local advertising may get you started as well, but expect to get a large portion of your business from referrals.

Charge your clients for the initial design and setup of the website. Work with them to develop a theme for their site based on their unique advantages over the competition. Keep the site simple to start with so that the cost of producing it is not prohibitive to the business and you can complete it profitably in a short time.

In this business, you can also make money on the maintenance and ongoing support of the website. Charge recurring monthly fees for such services needed as web hosting, updates and improvements to the site`s content, search engine optimization and submission, increasing traffic, traffic analysis, mailing list production and maintenance, and much more.

You don`t have to be a master Internet programmer to provide needed, additional services. There are many free and low cost sources of scripts and other resources available to you on the Internet. Offer your clients (and charge extra for) flash introductions, animated graphics, syndicated content, traffic counters, submission forms, chat rooms, pop-up windows, autoresponders, and more.

2. Sell Websites on the Internet
Build web stores, search engines, shopping portals, and other websites and sell them on the Internet.

Some develop sites from templates sold by others. Others build websites from scratch. These websites have been sold on the Internet as turnkey businesses through eBay and other websites.

Another option is to take existing free services and resell them. For example, you could take advantage of free web stores available to you on the Internet. Register a suitable domain name, obtain free or low cost web space, and host that free store at your domain on your web space. Promote your website and increase traffic. Finally, sell your website to the highest bidder on eBay. Be sure that either your Reserve Price or Opening Bid is high enough to make it profitable to you. You will need to transfer the domain
name to the buyer.


3. Become an Internet Marketer
Build your own unique website based on a niche theme that has a sufficient market. Then tie in your content with appropriate affiliate programs and your own as well as other peoples` products and services.

To increase commissions and sales, you will need to regularly maintain your site by updating content, increasing targeted traffic, adding appropriate products and services, et cetera.

These, then, are just a few ways that you can profit financially from building and maintaining websites.

About the author:
J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc.,
has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years.

For valuable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/For more information about making money from building and maintaining websites, please visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/webmstrbus.html

4 Tips to Find the Web Host That's Right For You

4 Tips to Find the Web Host That's Right For You
by: Paul Herbert

Choosing to make a web site is a very big decision. However, even more important than deciding to make the website itself, is choosing your web host. There are many web hosts out there, and so it is very difficult to find the web host that's right for you. In order to find the best web host, it is important to find as many options as possible, and have a clear idea of what you want out of your web host. Following these four tips will make your search for a solid web host a lot easier.

1. Use search engines. Search on Google and Yahoo using keywords such as 'web host'. Carefully going through the results will give you an accurate idea of the web hosting options available. Some may say that the web hosts ranked the highest are clearly the best, but this is not always true. Taking the time to look at a large number of the results will give you an ample group of web hosts to compare.

2. Know how your site is going to work. This tip may sound confusing, but it is important to know what your goals will be for your web site. If you plan to have a great number of large files hosted on your site, then you want a web host that gives you ample amounts of space. Bandwidth should also be taken into consideration. Is the site a personal site, or a commercial site? If you plan on making money with your website, than a larger investment for more storage space and bandwidth is justifiable. If you are making your site a blog and hosting it with a service such as TypePad, you want a web host that allows domain mapping.

3. Have a price range in mind. Knowing the general amount of money you are willing to spend will save you a great amount of time. If a certain web host is simply too expensive, then you move on to the next one with no issues. Additionally, if you set a specific price range, you can search for the best offer within that price range. Some web hosts may offer more space for $20 than others do for the same price.

4. Finally, make sure that you have web host support based on your needs. If it is your first web site, then you might want a web host that is willing to give advice on building new sites. Some web hosts offer a very hands on approach to new users. Other web hosts simply let users do whatever they want and no help is offered.

The most important thing when finding a web host is knowing exactly what you want. Your search for a web host will be a lot easier if you search for hosts using Search Engines like Google and Yahoo, and you know what you are looking for. Every web host offers something a little different than others. Simplicity and customer service should be high priorities when searching for a web host. Remember, the most expensive, and highest ranked web host may not always be the best web host for your needs. Beginning your web host search with a clear, informed mind is the perfect way to assure a successful venture.

About the author:
Paul Herbert is very interested in UK web hosting. Learn more at http://www.hosting-netexplorers.co.uk/web_hosting_uk/web_hosting_packages.php.