Tips On Domain Name Registration

Having a website will give you or your business an online presence on the world wide web. The first step in creating your own website would be to register a domain name. A domain name should be chosen well for such can determine the website's success and effectiveness including the traffic to be generated by your website. There are certain considerations to bear in mind when registering a domain name.

The extension of your domain name is one important consideration. Common would be .com but other extension like .net, .org, etc. are also being used. A .com for your chosen domain name would be better than the other extensions especially for a business website. With a domain for example like http://shoes.net, you may be sharing traffic with http://shoes.com.

It would be for the best if you don't register your domain name with your host. Splitting them up from the start would help you avoid headaches in the future should you reach a decision of parting ways with your web host. Registering your domain name with a reputable company would generally have a charge of between a dollar to ten dollars depending on length of time being signed up for and the extension used.

As much as possible a shorter domain name would be much easier to remember than a long one. It should be easy to spell especially for your customers who should be able to spell it right the first time. Browsers don't like remembering and typing long domain names. There are likely more typing errors, the longer the name.

Also, do not use copyrights and trademarks of other companies on your domain name so do your research to avoid getting involved with legal battles. While others may not ask for damages under such conditions the worse that they would do would be to take back your domain name.

A good domain name is hard to come by. If you have a great idea for a domain name, you could always reserve it in advance. Domain names come cheap these days. Having a good domain name makes it much easier for you to resell in the future should you decide to.

If possible your domain name should be your business name. Having a different domain name and a business name would be difficult to market and difficult for customers who have to take note of two different names.

Protect you domain from hijack by ensuring that your name and contact info is registered as the technical contact of the domain name and in Whois as the owner of the domain name and website.

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Choosing Between Free or Paid Web Hosting

There are a number of things to consider when choosing between a free or paid web hosting service.  Setting aside cost for a moment, lets look at some factors that will help you make an informative decision.

The very first thing you must consider is the intent or purpose of your website.  Are you looking for a convenient way to share photos of family and friends?  Or, are you considering something a little more complex such as adding multiple pages with different content on each?  How about a website to promote a product or business?

The purpose of your website will act as a key component in determining which type of web hosting service is best suited for you.  For example, if your website will be used primarily for personal postings, your file sizes aren’t very large and you don’t expect a lot of traffic, you won’t require a lot of disk space or bandwidth for your hosting. 

If this is the case, a free web hosting service may meet your needs.  Free web hosting services are also useful if you’re inexperienced in creating web pages.  This type of service can provide an excellent opportunity for you to learn and practice your html skills.  You could even use a free service as a test site before uploading your web pages to your live website.

Keep in mind that most free web hosting services provide limited features compared to paid web hosting services, but normally offer enough disk space and bandwidth to host a small website.  To help offset costs, though, most free providers will place advertisements on your web pages.

With paid hosting, you’ll find a variety of available plans to choose from.  These plans allow more disk space and bandwidth, and usually include a number of other features such as free domain names, free sub-domains and unlimited email accounts.  Some of the more advanced common features are a CGI-Bin, MySQL databases and Microsoft FrontPage extensions.

Compared to free web hosting, you’ll also find that the services provided by paid web hosting companies are much more reliable, not to mention offering a higher level of customer support.

Cost wise, there is no charge to register for a free web hosting service, although you may be required to purchase your own domain name.  For a basic paid service, you can expect to pay anywhere from $5 to $10 per month – a very small price for the improved service, support and features you receive.

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Web Hosting For Internet Marketers

Anybody researching the internet for web hosting services will find an abundance of hosting providers to choose from along with a multitude of plans available.  You’ll also discover that the majority of providers will offer many of the same plan features.  However, there are some hosting companies that offer additional tools directed towards internet marketers and the home business industry.

Even for experienced internet marketers, with the variety of companies and plans available, it’s not always easy to determine which web hosting service will best meet his or her specific business needs.  With so many options, how do you know which hosting provider is best suited for you and your business?

One thing for certain is that whatever you decide, do not make the mistake of basing your decision on the price of hosting alone.  One thing that has been substantiated time and time again is the old adage “you get what you pay for.”  Well, this also applies to web hosting!

If you’re an internet marketer or own an internet home business, listed below are some common features you should be looking for in a web hosting package.  Of course, it will be easy to find providers that offer more that what’s listed here (e.g. 1,000 MB of disk space, unlimited sub-domains, unlimited emails, etc), not to mention a number of additional features, so keep in mind that these benchmarks only represent a few of the minimum requirements:

-  300+ MB of Disk Space
-  10 GB or more of Monthly Bandwidth
-  50+ Email Accounts
-  20+ Sub-domains
-  CGI-Bin
-  3+ MySQL Databases

In addition to these common features, there are some web hosting companies that cater to internet marketers and home business entrepreneurs by offering useful marketing tools as part of their hosting package.  As you probably know, having access to in-demand marketing tools is a key ingredient in becoming successful on the internet.  Some of the tools I’m referring to include:

-  Unlimited Follow-up Autoresponders
-  Resalable E-Book Collections
-  FFA Leads
-  Lead Capture Systems
-  Ad Tracking
-  Shopping Carts
-  Scripts
-  Affiliate Programs and Commissions

These tools are a great benefit to both new and experienced internet marketers.  But, in addition to the tools, another very important difference I’ve found with these types of providers is their exceptional level of customer support.  Whether it’s assisting with the installation of a script, a problem copying files to the server, or responding to a general question, the support staff tend to be very knowledgeable and can be contacted around the clock either via telephone, live chat or email.

Compared to some web hosting services, you may notice the cost of these plans to be slightly higher because of the extra marketing tools and the quality of customer support provided.  However, with the growing popularity of internet marketing and the ever increasing number of new home businesses popping up on the internet, these providers can definitely give you an advantage over your competition.  And, if you choose a provider that offers an affiliate program, you could even end up with free web hosting and a profit to boot!

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Free Hosting – Increase Your Online Business Opportunities

Free web hosting is a service that stores your website and offers to delivers its web pages to the Internet for free. Thus, free hosting for your website actually offers you to increase your online business opportunities. Just as you want to get your website hosted in Internet, similarly there are customers out there who want to know more about your company. Free hosting suggests web hosting services that are free, and are usually advertisement-supported and of limited functionality.
Features of free web hosting

Free web hosts will start by providing you a sub domain [http://yourname.example.com] or a directory [http://www.example.com/yourname]. Since free hosts allow the use of separately purchased domains so they do not operate as domain name registrar. The free hosts are advantageous because they have a basic package for free and also enhanced packages [obviously with more features] that you have to purchase with a cost. This allows the users to try the services for an initial trial and then upgrade it in their websites, if needed.

The free hosts provide the following extra features:

 File transfer via FTP
 Allows some of the scheduled processes like cronjobs
 A web based control panel
 Free email accounts for subdomains and domain hosted
 Scripting languages like ASP and PHP
 Allows relational databases

When you are searching for a free web host, you should make sure that the hosts have an excellent track record. You should enquire into the storage facilities allowed by the host and see how much the free host can provide you with web control panels and password protected directories for your website.

Methods of free web hosting

There are a few methods of giving out free web hosting to people by web hosts, which are as follows:

- Instant activation – these hosts usually give very little storage space and bandwidth allowances. They require the user’s web page to display their banner ads, or pop-ups, text link ads or the user’s files to be uploaded through a web-based file manager.

- Post for hosting – this is more popular as it allows one to register at Web shots forum, which usually has lots of banner or popup Ads – and post there for Free web hosting. One has to stay active and meet certain requirements almost every month/week to keep up their level of web hosting.

- Posting in forums – some of the free hosts allow posting in a forum. It requires users to either reach a certain amount of posts before getting a free hosting account or be an active contributor in the forum. These forum-based free hosting factors often work on a system of points where posts points to a user and are basically used as credits towards getting a hosting account.

Limitations of free web hosting

But free hosting has the following limitations:

- Prevents hot linking of files
- Fails to provide any type of uptime guarantee
- Do not allow file types like MP3, MPEG and others
- Provides very small bandwidth per month as compared to paid hosting
- Allows very limited size of hosted files

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Tips On FrontPage Web Site Hosting For You

FrontPage is one of the most common web design software. This software will help you to create small web sites without learning HTML. The only thing you have to do is to design a layout and FrontPage will automatically make the coding for you. After finishing the site, you can instantly transfer the site to a server by clicking the button "Publish site". However, before publishing a FrontPage site, you need to find FrontPage web site hosting.

First, you should find a server with Microsoft FrontPage, available to potential customers. Depending on the web hosting company, you may find a plan with other scripting languages included, like PHP, CGI and ASP. For some extra money, you may gain access to MySQL or Access databases. In addition, FrontPage web site hosting servers give access to customers to modify their sites with a set of programs that contain many useful tools. With just a few clicks, customers can make changes in all their pages, simultaneously.

FrontPage web site hosting advantages

On FrontPage web site hosting servers you can find thousands of java scripts, images, templates and ready to run solutions. You can add and position images in your pages with drag and drop technique and you can format the text without learning cascading style sheets. All these things can save you lot of time if you are a beginner in web design.

FrontPage package has also included Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting. This means that you can add lots of ready to run vb-scripts to your site, without knowing how they were created. Another useful tool is the online coding. On the UNIX servers, you can change the files of your site only on your PC, and then you upload them on server. Nevertheless, on FrontPage web site hosting servers you can edit the files directly by coding in a window. After you finish editing the files, you may browse them in Design View, simulation different screen resolution or browsers.

Disadvantages of the FrontPage web site hosting

FrontPage web site hosting includes lots of useful tool for webmasters. However, after you create a site using these tools you will not be able to move your site on other type of server, unless you start coding all your pages. Servers with FrontPage, have Microsoft Windows as operating system, while more then 95 percent of web hosting servers use UNIX. This will make harder to install additional modules to your site if they were not design for Windows.

Even if you host your site on a server with Microsoft FrontPage installed, you may need to manually code your pages in order to make them accessible in other browsers like Fire Fox, Opera, Netscape, etc. Anyway, 90 percent of the visitors use Internet Explorer, so this problem will not affect very much your daily traffic.

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Web Hosting Features

How do I know a good web hosting service from a bad one? What features should I be looking for when choosing a web host? What is bandwidth or transfer? How much storage space do I really need? What tools should they offer me and which ones do I need?

In this article I will attempt to give you the short version of answers to those questions for you to use as a reference. A lot about choosing a web-hosting provider depends on what your website needs and every website has different needs.

First question was “How do I know a good web hosting service from a bad one?” Before doing business with anyone on the web that is going to be as important to your business as a web hosting company, you should do a search on the name of the company and look for criticisms, complaints, etc. Keep in mind no one has 100% satisfied customers and finding just one complaint on the web doesn’t mean that the company is a bad one. However if you find a lot of complaints, I would move on to the next provider.

Now about the bandwidth and transfer question I mentioned above. Bandwidth and transfer are basically the same thing. Some tech guy might know a difference I’m not aware of, but it won’t be much difference. This is the number of times each file in your website is downloaded for the web host’s server to the visitors computer.

In other words, the size of you webpages in kilobytes plus the size of each graphic or other type of file that is served to the users computer is the amount of transfer you are using. If your website will have a lot of graphics, movies, downloads, etc., make sure you choose a web-hosting plan that offers you a lot of bandwidth. The average website doesn’t need more than 2-5 gigabytes of transfer per month.

How much storage space do I need? The storage space is no different than your computer’s hard drive. If the web host offers 100 megabytes of storage space that is just like having a 100-megabyte hard drive. If your files are not more than 100 megabytes then that is plenty of storage. Most web hosting companies offer plenty of storage space, more than the average website will ever use.

The question, “What features should I look for and which tools do I need?” are ones that I can answer together.

What about the web host’s support policy. Do they offer 24/7 tech support? Do you think you will need 24/7 tech support? This is one area that is important for you to consider. The Internet is 24 hours per day. Your website is online 24 hours per day. So it is possible you might need 24/7 tech support.

How do you contact tech support there? Just email? Is there a phone number? Do they use support tickets? Do they have a chatroom or forum for tech support? How accessible your web hosting tech support is will determine how fast things get fixed when you have a problem. See if you can send in a tech support query before signing up. See how fast you get an email back or if they answer the phone when you call them.

Those three important issues, bandwidth, storage space, and tech support are not the only things you need to consider. Do they offer Cpanel or an easy-to-use control panel for managing your website? Can they show you a sample of the control panel before you sign up? If you choose a web host that does not have an easy-to-use control panel are you tech-savvy enough to get around in the root files?

How many databases can be created on your web hosting plan. How many do they allow? Do they offer instant-install or install-on-demand features like picture galleries, content management systems, forums, blogs, or other website enhancements?

These are all questions you need to ask before you sign up with any web hosting service. If they do not give you all that information on the automatic signup page, email them and ask them questions. Their response may be all you need to know about whether to choose them as your web hosting provider or not.

I hope this article has helped you to learn about some of the things you need to consider when choosing a web hosting service. Cheap is not always good. This is your online business. Treat it well and choose a web hosting serviee that makes things easier for you.

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Choosing Internet Hosting Sites

If you are considering placing your business storefront on the Internet, then you will have quite a bit of work ahead of your in choosing Internet hosting sites that can be trusted.  Many of the larger, and well-known Internet hosting companies are no longer in business because their success has opened the door to larger businesses buying their services for their own use.

When choosing Internet hosting sites, it will be a good idea to create a maxtrix of all of the services that they offer.  Keep track of how many different servers they offer, for the different price ranges that they currently have in their databases.  There are email servers that your business can use to store the email addresses of all of your customers. 

It would be a good idea to check out the privacy policies of the Internet hosting services when choosing Internet hosting sites.  If these people have a stated policy that they collect information, then that means that they are financially benefiting from the success of your business.  They take your customer email addresses and sell those addresses to marketing companies.

There are other factors to consider when choosing Internet hosting sites.  Some of these companies make it easy for you to do business.  They offer all-in-one packages that are primarily arranged to fit the needs of small business.  Some of these all-in-one packages might seem a bit pricey at times, but when you consider what you are getting for your money, they beat many other Internet hosting sites offerings hands down.

These Internet hosting sites features not only the basic Internet web page creation tools, but other tools that small businesses can use to grow with, such as software you can use to follow-up with prospective clients, encrypted software to enable you to operate a confidential financial transaction where credit card information can not be divulged, and marketing tools that will drive web traffic to your business website.

All of the long range goals of your company should be in place on the Internet services site that you are considering.  When choosing Internet hosting sites, make sure that they have an adequate amount of servers and Internet speed connections to allow your customers to access your business website without delays.  Any glitches that you experience when you are accessing the storefront that you have designed using the software that your Internet hosting site furnishes will be the same glitches that your customers will experience when they come to your web store.

When choosing Internet hosting sites, consider whether the Internet hosting site offers any Internet marketing software.  These free tools, which you actually pay for through your monthly membership fees, can help you grow your business in areas that you might not have considered.  Any Internet hosting site that is not concerned in the least, with how you operate your business, and market your business, will certainly not be concerned in how your business can grow.

This uncaring Internet hosting site is certainly not the right one when choosing Internet hosting sites for your business to use.  There are numerous Internet hosting sites to choose from and with more research you can find the one that is right for you.

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Search Engines And Directories - Understanding The Difference

One thing that is so basic that it often still needs to clarified is the concept that a search engine and a search directory (article directory) are not the same thing. The traditional search engines add Web site pages to their databases automatically and then rank them in popularity in their search engine rankings based on user submissions. However, these search engines also periodically send their automatic robots or "spiders" out to "crawl" for new and updated information on websites that can also be indexed and added to the search engine rankings. Complex algorithms (that are comparable to the mysterious complex FICO Scores that are used to calculate your credit rating) calculate your web page’s popularity on a number of different factor. The most famous example of a pure search engine like this is Google

Directories also qualify as a search site but they are not the same as a search engine. To get listed on a directory, you must actually submit your front page URL on the directory's submission form. Also instead of being evaluated by an algorithm, these pages are directly assessed by a human being. This means that your site is ranked according to the information that you submitted on your application. This is very different from a typical search engine that assesses your web ranking according to what is actually on the home page of your web site. The Open Directory, Yahoo and LookSmart are the main Internet directories that are managed in this way.

To make things even more difficult the search sites and the search engines work in cahoots together to boost each other’s rankings. Almost all of the major search engines also work in tandem with a directory which is why, for instance, a listing in DMOZ almost automatically guarantees you a place on Google.

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Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated Servers and its Benefits!

What is a Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated server and why is it different than normal web hosting. Web hosting offers you limited control of how the server your web site is hosted on behaves. Normal hosting plans put many customers' accounts on a single server and you upload your files to that Server. Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated servers allow you to actually control your own server where you receive Admin access to install and run virtually anything YOU want on the server. You can host multiple web sites on the one server account, and even sell hosting and host other sites on your server.

I have referred to Dedicated and Virtual Dedicated Servers. You may ask, what is the difference? Virtual dedicated servers are similar to Dedicated servers as they offer many of the same features, but at a much lower price.

With a virtual dedicated server, the customer shares the server space with a limited number of other customers using the same server box. Each virtual dedicated server is isolated from the other accounts giving the user full control of their own server. Virtual dedicated servers are useful for companies and individuals that run complex applications that need the bandwidth, consistent performance, and flexibility of a virtual dedicated server.

With a dedicated server, you actually lease a server box that is dedicated to only you and is set up to your preferences. The dedicated server customer has exclusive rights to the server's bandwidth, memory and storage space. Also, a dedicated server account provides full control of any software installation on the server. Dedicated servers are useful for companies and individuals that run very-high-traffic Web sites or applications that need the bandwidth, versatility, and consistent performance of a dedicated box.

Dedicated / Virtual dedicated servers are an excellent choice to use for gaming sites, database management, shared hosting, and hosting of Web sites that receive high amounts of traffic.

Companies now offer your own customization of your Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated Server. This allows you the flexibility to choose one of their popular pre-packaged plans, or go wild and customize and configure your own virtual dedicated server by selecting your own options.

One bonus that can help you decide on where to get your server from is the support they offer, the value they give you when signing up and what system
you will actually be running the server on. With support, the standard now is to be offered 24x7 email, telephone and Web-based tech support, as well as you having access to modify your server 24x7. Sometimes a free offering when purchasing the server is given. You should look for companies that offer Free and quick setup of the server, so you may be running in no time.

So you have decided you need a Virtual Dedicated Server or Dedicated Server. Now what? You need to choose a company to purchase your Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated Server from. Here is a company I recommend for purchasing your Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated Server from.

Domains at Retail - offers 24x7 email, telephone and Web-based tech support for your Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated Server, allows you to pick a pre-configured server or to customize your own server and will set up your account for free. Visit Domains at Retail at http://www.domainsatretail.com/wholesalehosting.html for your Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated Server needs!

Good Luck with the purchase of your Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated Server and start running your server today!

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E commerce web-hosting solutions

Internet presents more and more possibilities for successful promotion of your e-business in global markets. Similarly internet also presents you with a number of service providers out of which only few can guarantee you quality. And that is the most the most important thing you should keep in mind before you choose your e-commerce service providers.
In order to have a successful e-business, you not only need to have a good e-commerce website design but also a perfect e-commerce web hosting platform.

   
An extremely important aspect while choosing a e-commerce host is the uptime, which means the time when your website would be available to the visitors. Apparently if a host is offering a 90% uptime guarantee, it means you website can actually be down for almost 36 days in a year! Never settle for anything less than 98%. Your store front being available to your customer 24 hrs/seven days is the most important aspect of your e-commerce web site and to ensure that you have but to choose a quality host.

A quality e-commerce web hosting should have the following features:
•    Internet Merchant account solutions
•    Credit Card Processing and Payment Gateway services
•    Merchant Accounts for Internet,
•    Virtual terminal for key entered Mail Order/Phone Order sales
•    Retail and Auction businesses facility
•    Integration of different shopping carts & software systems
•    Online reporting and real time transaction management
•    24 hr technical supports and availability of the user manuals
•    Facility to integrate your ASP-based enterprise e-business database, dynamic content and commerce management software in an open application server environment.
Managing an e-business could be one of the easiest thing to do if you initially do a good amount of research and planning to have your e-commerce website designed, developed and hosted in the most professional manner.

Ecommerce website design plays an integral role for getting long-term business benefits from your site. The success of your e-business depends on a large extent on how well your site performs and accomplishes the various business related tasks to meet the financial goals.  Most of the search engine experts agree that e-commerce web design can greatly affect performance & visibility in the organic search engine results.

To summarize, the special e-commerce web design features you can look for in your e commerce web site should include the following:
•    Quickly organize your products (including additions) at your storefront or home page
•    Create product categories, catalog items, and upload pictures of your products.
•    Process sales orders, enter tracking numbers, and send instant email confirmations to the customers and the concerned staff.
•    Keep accurate records of your customers and their orders.
•    Create reports that track sales and site usage.
•    Track inventory levels for all the products in your store.
•    Update product information using rapid entry screens for speed and efficiency.
•    Export your sales information in industry standard formats compatible with popular accounting packages.
•    Your website is compatible with most major credit card payment processing solutions
•    Integrated product search page.
•    Built in modular fashion, allowing for free future upgrades and addition of new features.
E-commerce Web Marketing
Your E commerce web site can have facility to create, schedule, and send highly effective, personalized email marketing campaigns that reflect your branding and image at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. Many e-commerce web hosting providers offer you extensive library of colorful eye-catching templates, and facility to create messages with your own themes and styles.
Now-a-days, the advanced e-commerce web hosting solutions and web marketing packages have the viral marketing features included as a part of your e-commerce web site promotion.
Viral Marketing:
Viral marketing is a strategy that encourages individuals to pass on
a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth with the exposure it get to the professionally created messages, it encompasses the following tools:
1    Loyalty Building Tools
•    Adding the personal touch to your business communications is now possible with triggered auto-emailing event reminders like (Birthdays, warranties, anniversaries etc.)
•    Leverage your current customer base to advertise for you by providing them by providing ‘refer to a friend link.’
•    An Invite Tool has the capacity to take "viral marketing" and ‘email marketing to new heights. It lets your patrons play "host" at your establishment for arranging an event and invite a large number of people participate in it.
2    Survey Creation Tools
These tools allow you have the ability to collect names, email addresses, and profile information from the people who visit your website. With these tools you can build your own survey/ sign-up-forms using a without any HTML experience required! All subscriber information is automatically segmented and delivered to your secure and proprietary database.

For a busy e-commerce web site, dedicated servers with a number of windows and Linux web hosting plans only can provide you with the best service.
If looking for affordable e-commerce web hosting; virtual web hosting is the  perfect choice which provides better control than the shared environment and saves you from some of the worries of dedicated servers.


ServerPlex provides you the highest quality ecommerce web hosting and extremely competitive and guaranteed pricing for Merchant Accounts.

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How To Select A Reliable Web Hosting Company

To conduct a successful marketing campaign on the Internet, your website must be hosted by a reliable web hosting company. Selecting the 'wrong' provider can prove very costly along the line.

Below I detail a few important aspects of the selection process based purely on my own experiences over the last six years.

Since there are thousands of hosting companies in the web hosting market, naturally during your research you will encounter hundreds of web hosting resource sites loaded with numerous and sometimes bogus reviews and recommendations, consequently your research process must be very thorough.

First and foremost do searches in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Simply enter terms like "Complaints about 'Your Potential Host's Name'" 'Hosting Reviews', etc.....You will find a lot of stuff regarding your potential host. Search for 'web hosting forums'; there are numerous such forums on the web that contain all kinds of information.

If you consistently find too many complaints about your potential web hosting company.... beware!

A company that offers too many features for too little is also suspect. If they are offering huge amounts of bandwidth and disk space for a very low price, be careful. Here is why: The company will most likely be forced to host numerous websites per server, resulting in congestion and server overload. The result: Your site may be too slow and may experience lots of downtime.

Where is your web host's datacenter located?

A datacenter located in a natural disaster prone and/or a politically unstable region is undesirable. I wouldn't host my website in a Kabul, Afghanistan or Kinsasha, Congo based datacenter - these two and many others around the world are politically unstable regions. On the other hand a datacenter based in the state of California, a major earthquake zone may be undesirable, but the fact that California is more than well equipped to handle such disasters and is the world's nerve center for all that is computer, far outweighs any existing dis-advantages.

A foreign based hosting company may be too far away from your customers. It won't serve you well if your host is based in Australia and your targeted customers are based in The United States. On the contrary, if your are marketing to customers exclusively in Australia from The United States, a web hosting company in Australia would be OK. If you are marketing worldwide, your choice becomes a little bit more complicated....unless of course you are Google, Yahoo or MSN, big companies who host their websites almost everywhere worldwide. Generally, I prefer web hosting companies located in The United States.

How is your web host connected to the internet?

Your potential host's data infrastructure - regional and local is of utmost importance.

- How is your potential host connected to the Internet...Do they have multiple connections to the internet backbone, and enough bandwidth to accommodate surges in web traffic?
- What kind of computer equipment is deployed within the datacenter?
- Is the latest network security technologies incorporated?
- Are the hosting servers protected behind firewalls and intrusion monitoring software
- Is the datacenter monitored via CCTV and supervised 24/7

How fast is your web host?

Find a couple of sites that are hosted by your potential web hosting company and test how fast their pages load on your computer. You also may execute the PING and TRACEROUTE commands on these websites to determine their suitability. Executing the ping command is called pinging a website and it determines how quickly a server can receive and send back a piece of data through your connection. When you run ping it sends a small packet of data and calculates the time it takes to get a response from the server. It is executed four times by default and a small report of average, minimum, and maximum response times will be displayed. A ping output typically consists of the packet size used, the host queried, the ICMP sequence number, the time to live, and the latency. All times are given in milliseconds. A ping output indicating large values and/or lost packets consistently over a period of time ....is a red flag! Please note that if you have a bad or restrictive connection (Your ISP), the results may be skewed. Firewalls and proxy servers installed in your system or network can sometimes interfere with the ping operation. Also, some web hosting companies do not allow pinging of their servers, in which case you will get a 'Request Timed Out message'.

The Traceroute utility displays the connection [path] through the Internet between your computer and the potential web hosting company's server(s). The path between these two locations has many routers, computers and other devices along it which help move Internet information. Each movement from one device to the other is called a hop. Too many hops is cause for concern ....do several Traceroutes for comparison!

Based on my experiences with different hosting companies over the years, I regard the following Web Hosting companies as the most reliable. I am sure there are many other good hosting companies out there, but it would be unfair to comment about a company that I have never dealt with.

One my websites, TheCertificationHub.com has been hosted by Ipowerweb since 2000. There were problems at first, typical when a web hosting company is experiencing a spurt in growth. In the year 2000, they had a customer base of 15,000. Six years later this number has grown to almost 300,000 and their service level has improved tremendously over these six years. Ipowerweb is one of the best web hosting companies on the Internet. A first class hosting company which I highly recommend.

I moved my other website, ClubAfrika.com from Globat to iPowerWeb beginning April 25, 2005. With Ipowerweb I have experienced much less frequent downtimes, few email delays and failures. The customer service is superb and well coordinated as expected. The only problem we had at the beginning was their inability to transfer our database from Globat. Club Afrika is targeted at users in Africa, most of who are still on dial-up. It therefore makes no sense that these users have to wait for 5+ minutes for pages to load up. In this respect Ipowerweb has delivered. My site is no longer 'snail slow' and in spite of a few incompetent TIER 1 Techs here and there, overally I am satisfied with their service. Globat may improve in future....I suspect that they are having 'growth problems' just like Ipowerweb had when I first started hosting with them. If they do, then they might be worth considering for they offer the most 'humongous' features in the web-hosting business. But be cautious, 'Greed' almost always translates into poor website performance....some of their offerings are just too good to be true, for lack of appropriate words.

I have been hosting another website, ApondoSystems.com on Lunar Pages servers since 2000. Lunar Pages web hosting plans start at 5000MB of storage and 400GB of transfer for only $7.95. It is my opinion that Lunar Pages is a great web hosting company. Great website uptime and customer service! Very few websites require more than 1000MB of disk space (Apondo Systems has over 300 pages and I haven't even used one half of the allocated space), so if what you are looking for is quality first, Lunar pages is a good bet. If you are looking for extra databases, humongous disk space and bandwidth, then take a look at iPowerWeb which is a topnotch company too, or even Globat.

StartLogic is a relatively new web hosting company, a reseller of IPowerweb Web Hosting Services. Naturally, you will expect them to follow in the great footsteps of Ipowerweb. Being the #1 reseller of Ipowerweb, StartLogic's hosting infrastructure is most probably maintained by Ipowerweb, a large and reputable web hosting company. They offer both Windows and Unix Hosting. Due to the 'newness' of the company and the fact that I have not used their services, I cannot judge them authoritatively, but based on the comments I have seen so far, all over the Internet and by virtue of their relationship with Ipowerweb, I think this is a good low cost web hosting company.

GoDaddy currently offers one of the cheapest prices for Domain Names and Hosting Services. The pricing on packages is very competitive. With Godaddy website templates you can get a nice-looking Web site with ample storage. Reports indicate that their performance is above average. One thing you may not like is that they do not have an 800 number for Technical Support. They prefer local numbers. I think their pricing especially for Domain Names is very reasonable and is worth giving a shot. Also, if you are looking for just a handful of features, Godaddy offers very flexible packages....they even allow you to pay for your hosting services on a monthly basis! The control panel is kind of 'tight', scripting Gurus may not like some of the restrictions but I think Godaddy hosting is worth a try. We hosted AfroArticles.com briefly at GoDaddy but quickly moved it to Hostgator for one and only one reason: Godaddy does not support CRON JOBS, a server feature vital to AfroArticles.com.

Our website, AfroArticles.com is hosted at Hostgator. We were initially attracted by two things: Unlimited Databases and the option of paying monthly and not the usual year long contract. This means that if we are to disapprove of their services during our self imposed trial period, we will be able to opt out with ease. Well, we haven't because we love the friendly and professional customer service support offered by hostgator and our website has been running exceptionally well. We have yet to experience any unscheduled downtimes. If you are looking to re-sell hosting, then consider Hostgator. Although the pricing is slightly above the average in comparison to other top hosting companies, we feel that the reliability of their services, the bandwidth, storage, unlimited databases and numerous other features included with their packages are well worth it. Hostgator is a topnotch hosting company, at the same level as iPowerweb and Lunar Pages.

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Virtual hosting

Virtual hosting is a method which enables servers to host more than one domain name on the same computer, sometimes on the same IP (internet protocol) address. Simply put, one will possess his own identity, but he will not be required to maintain the equipment in the case of virtual web hosting.

Usually, there are two methods of accomplishing virtual hosting. The first one is name-based and the other one is IP-based. Name-based virtual hosts actually use multiple host names for the same web-server IP address. With browsers that support HTTP, upon connecting to a web-server, the browser sends the address that the client typed into the browser’s URL bar. The server is able to use this information to determine which website/page to show to the client. In the latter (IP address based), each site points to a unique IP address and the web server is configured with multiple physical network interfaces which can also obtain the address the TPC connection was aimed for using a standard API. There are no compatibility issues as the client is not involved in this process.

It becomes much harder to access a virtually hosted website if the DNS (Domain Name System) does not function properly. Normally in this case, the user could try and fall back to using the IP address to contact the system but the web browser does not know what host name to send when this occurs. Hence, the server is most likely to respond with a default website, often not the anticipated site of the user. It is not that useful for an average web user but may be beneficial to a site administrator while fixing DNS records. Adding the IP address and host name to the client system’s host file is a good thing to do in this case. At this point, accessing the server with the domain name is most likely to work again. The users, however, should be careful as any changes made to the true mapping between IP address and host name will be overridden by the local setting. Another problem with this kind of hosting is the inability to host more than one secure websites running SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Running IP aliasing or multiple web server programs is a pretty good way to handle this issue.

Virtual web hosting is commonly used in a greater magnitude in companies whose business model is to provide economical website hosting for customers. A big chunk of such web hosting service websites are hosted on shared servers using virtual hosting technology. Some businesses make optimum use of this technology by keeping different intranets and extranets separate from each other for internal security reasons.

Online virtual hosting packages are very common these days which offer a professional look for personal and small business websites. Usually, the monthly charges of these virtual hosting accounts range from fifteen to thirteen dollars. Additional fees are charged with the inclusion of advanced features such as SSL functionality or database software.

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Web Hosting: Do You Really Get What You Pay For?

There is an assumption among business owners that in order to have a quality website you need to follow the old adage, “You get what you pay for.”

The truth is, in web hosting you can pay a significant amount of money and receive poor service. Certainly the reverse is true, but the point is inexpensive doesn’t always mean ‘cheap’ and expensive does not always equate to excellence in web hosting and design.

Many web designers who also provide hosting options may supply a reasonably priced plan for site development, however the plan doesn’t always include the things you may need for your ecommerce store and the add-ons can add up.

There are web hosting/design options that include many of the most used features of ecommerce as part of the bundled price.

Some of the options available include…

* Customer Newsletter System
* Customer/Order Database
* Feedback Forms
* AutoResponders
* PayPal Shopping Cart Tools
* Search Engine Registration
* Full Feature Website Wizard
* Merchant CC ID OAC
* Authorize.net Setup OAC
* Pro Stock Image Library
* Premium Hosting

If you are shopping for a web design and a web host you need to consider all options. It is reasonable to believe that by paying more you can receive better service, but experience says that this line of thinking is not always true.

Sites have been developed with a fee for every photo, every page, every design element and every tool that was used to create the site. What if you simply had access to all of these things at monthly fee that is less than a night with the family at a fast food restaurant?

While some businesses may feel this is an inferior way to develop a website, consider what other business owners have to say about this type of web hosting option.

"Enables you to make your own website and there's no need for you to know any programming." - David Chalk

"I was quickly able to build a fully functional commercial web site using the easy-to-use templates with Slide Shows, Image Maps, Fully Functional Search Engine, Pay Pal Shopping Cart and more! Highly Recommended. Tremendous Value." - Don Fortner

"My staff laughed when I told them I was going to make our company website myself, but you should have seen their faces when it was done!" - Gerod Floyd

"I don't know why everyone does not do it this way." - Garfield McCormick

Whatever web hosting and design service you use, make sure to explore the total cost (site design, add-ons, maintenance, etc) before you make a decision. Your site could cost you a lot more than it needs to.

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How To Get The Successful Blog

The great idea is the most important thing for making your blog. The way to discover the good strategy is looking at the websites or blogs that have successfully. Blog or Weblog is easy to build and organize. Almost blogs on the internet are text. But some blogs are photo, video and multimedia blogs. It is not necessary to have the knowledge about the programming for your blog. Of course, you need to add the quality contents and unique subjects to your blog. The great contents will keep the visitors comeback and the personal blog like the online community is a good idea, too. To get traffic to your blog, you need to draft a smart marketing plan. It will make your blog to stand apart from the competitions.

There are a lot of blogging tools and blogging services on the internet. The learning of the free blogging tools is the good idea for you. They will change your blog to the new looking and more interesting. If you decide to use these tools, you should be plan about the benefits of them. You can use a lot of the free blogging tools in your blog but it does not mean that you want them.

The common tool is the visitor counter. It will track the number of the visitors, the keywords on your blog and more statistics about the visitors. You will using the search engine to find the free visitor counters on the internet.

The other tools such as media player, special effect and flash should be used if you have assessing what tools will help you realize the looking and increasing the traffic. But you should known that the free tools may not be used in the long run.

The basic factors for build the blog are the platform, the web hosting and the domain name. These factors are discussed here.

1. The platform

The software program which is the main program for control and organize your blog such as blogger and wordpress. There are many functions that you should to realize such as write the posts, update blog, blog theme, font style (CSS style) and more.

2. The web hosting

This is the data storage for your blog. You will communicating with the web hosting when you upload the pictures, edit the post and more. There is the free web hosting for your blog with the free blogging service. But they will limit some features of the service such as the bandwidth, data storage space, database function and some scripts (PHP, Email, Cron job, etc…). If your blog have a lot of traffics, you should pay for the web hosting service to get the more benefits. The cost is varying from 1.00 to 100.00+ per month.

3. The domain name

This is the online address of your blog. You can get the own domain name by registering with the domain registrar. Or you can get the free domain name with some blogging service website as blogger and wordpress. But you will get the subdomain with this service.

For blogger: you will get “yourdomain.blogspot.com”
For wordpress: you will get “yourdomain.wordpress.com”

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Dedicated Hosting Award Program Call for Entries

Submissions are now being accepted for the following categories and subcategories:

- Server & O/S Hosting
IBM AIX, AS/400, HP-UX Linux, Solaris, VMware, Windows

- Database Hosting
IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server Cluster, MySQL  Oracle 9i / 10g / 11g, Oracle RAC

- Application Hosting
AspenTech, BEA WebLogic, Blackberry Enterprise Server, Citrix, Custom Software, IBM WebSphere, Lotus, Microsoft Exchange, SupportSoft, Verity Hosting, VMware

- Service Provider Hosting 
Application Service Provider (ASP), Software as a Service (SaaS)

- Solutions By Industry
Construction, Education,Energy/Utilities, Financial, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Marketing/Media, Retail/Distribution, Technology,Transportation

There will be separate award for each category and subcategory and an overall  best dedicated hosting provider Award for an outstanding service provider who continues to inspire the industry.

To submit an entry, please visit: Dedicated Server Hosting Awards
The options in managed dedicated web hosting have exploded in recent years. Dedicated servers are now available at prices even the smallest businesses can afford, and the future of Web Hosting is Dedicated Servers.

Top 10 Dedicated Hosting Website (http://www.Top10DedicatedHosting.com) categorically defines Dedicated server hosting providers as Cheap Dedicated hosting, Best Dedicated hosting and Managed Dedicated services based on both Linux and Windows platforms and offering options such as Celeron, Pentium 4, Dual Xeon, Xeon Quad Core, Kentsfield, Conroe, Woodcrest and Clovertown Processors, Dual Core AMD Opteron, cPanel, Plesk, WHM, Redhat, Debian, FreeBSD,  CentOS and Windows 2003

Top 10 Dedicated Server Hosting providing providing Dedicated Hosting Reviews to clients, Consultancy and Training to Web Hosting Providers and End Users, announced here today that Call for Entries is open for 2008 Dedicated Hosting Award Program.

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Cheapest Web Hosting Services from UK’s Best Web Hut Company

Today Online Presence is not enough to break the door of Internet Marketing and dominate over your competitors. Humans appetizing are increasing day by day to earn more with cost effective investment whether talk about a simple Web hosting Services, Web host Reseller, Cheap Web hosting. And it hardly to find a reliable, Low Cost or Cheapest Web hosting Services when thousands of web hosting companies are in row and competition is very tough. Your daunting mission ends here as you are a right place for your website hosting services which is low cost website hosting with remarkable results. The Web hut Of UK comes to your hut with all solution of not only Web hosting services uk but cheapest web hosting services providing their services not in UK but worldwide. The Web Hut of UK, Cheap Reseller hosting companies also offer a wide variety range Reseller hosting accounting services, low cost website hosting.

Buy cheap web hosting at Web Hut that is a scalable multi server web hosting solution which will provide you error free 24 hour availability on the web with high quality performance.
. We also offer Reseller hosting account services not in UK but in overseas also resulting in combining world in one path.

Buy Cheap Hosting at Web Hut involved many highly developed features and a classy billing system to mechanize and perk up your web hosting errands. The Web Hut is deliberated to work on many servers and can be scaled by adding more web, mail, database, e-commerce and DNS servers without any downtime. It provides a straightforward, accessible web edge that can be retained from any computer with an internet connection. Our low cost website hosting services run only industry standard software that includes Windows and Linux web hosting environments. Buying our cheap web hosting system bestow us the capability to let our patrons to encompass bursting control of their web hosting services.
Web hut presents a complete series of hosting solutions from an impartial email solution to a bursting blown e-commerce with thousands of products. Our Cheap reseller hosting account occupies spaces from good web hosting services of UK which is very reliable and affordable to use. 

We take attention to detail to understand our patrons businesses and we have profound resources for bringing solutions for all their hosting and technology confronts. Our low cost website hosting service decisive factor is not exclusively based on outlay and features only. Our condition to succeed into our Top web hosting services providers in UK and overseas listing is evaluated on:
•    Our dedicated web host service to their potential customer of several numbers of years in the web hosting business.
•    The consistency and uniformity of Web Hut‘s low cost website hosting infrastructure and the scale of our data center facilities we provide.
•    The pricing of our web site hosting plan.
•    Our Cheapest Web host services and cheap reseller hosting includes features like disk space, bandwidth, server-side functionalities, e-Commerce ready, other free extra services such as free web design templates, Internet marketing and promotion.
•    Our details list of satisfied customers carries our cheap web hosting services.
We believe our customer business and their goals must be fully implicit before developing a plan for their trade.  We build up the campaigns that fit our client’s needs.  We work around our clients, not the other way around.

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Cheap Web Hosting - Free Hosting Services

Finding cheap web hosting has never been easier.  Technology and bandwidth are getting less expensive every day and the cost of web hosting is going down just the same.

Many people and small business owners have hesitated going online with a website because they don’t think they can afford to do it.  They have taken a look at the large amount of money big companies are spending on their websites and hosting.  But the reality is, most companies can use a cheap web hosting provider and stay well within a budget.

One place to look to in regards to cheap web hosting is free hosting services.  You can not get any cheaper than that.  After the dot com boom free web hosting didn’t disappear they just became a bit harder to find.  There are only a few big names left in the free hosting circle such as GeoCities and Tripod.

Free hosting is good if you are just starting out and money is an issue.  The problem is it has a lot of limitations.  Most come with ads all over your site and you do not share in the revenue they may produce.  If your site was to become popular and have a lot of visitors they could suspend your site because of to much usage or force you to sign up for a paid account.  This may be the ultimate cheap web hosting but may not be what is best for you.

If you need cheap web hosting but are not sure if you want to the commitment of a yearly plan, but you don’t want the limitations that a free hosting company will impose on you, you have a few options available for your consideration.

Cheap web hosting is available on a pay as you go plan.  This is not real popular as of yet but is becoming more available all the time.  You do not pay a monthly fee.  What you do is, put money on your account then each time someone accesses your site a small amount is taken off the books.  This way you are only paying for what you are using.

Another cheap web hosting plan is finding a web host that does not make you commit to a long term agreement.  Many cheap web host providers will offer a monthly plan that is reasonable and affordable.  You have all the benefits, but do not have the long term commitment should you change your mind. 

You can find cheap web hosting with great customer service for as little as five dollars or less a month.  You will have all the disk space and bandwidth needed to make your online presence a success.  To find these do your homework.  Research and also find others who have used or are using a particular company you are interested in.

A word of caution in regards to some cheap web hosting companies.  Do not let them over sell you.  You do not need a huge amount of disk space or bandwidths so don’t pay for a excessive amount.  Try and find a cheap web host that will allow you to add to your disk space or bandwidth as you go.

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Getting The Right Office Furniture For Computing

Having the right furniture in your office can not only help you to be more productive, but it can also provide the correct support for your body as well, especially if you spend a good majority of your time in front of the computer. And whether you’re at home or the office, you most likely know that there are proper and improper methods and heights for sitting while you work. But did you also know that the wrong office furniture can lead to Repetitive Stress Injuries that include chronic back and neck pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, eye strain and a variety of other health problems? Let’s take a look at the best methods for avoiding these issues.

Chairs
Sitting in an ergonomically correct chair is one of the best things you can do for yourself. The right chair should be easily adjustable to provide proper support for the small of your back and your lumbar curve overall. It should also be ‘user friendly’ so as to fit well with your body type. And when sitting, your feet should be comfortably flat on the floor or on a footrest in front of you.

Desk
Whether your keyboard sits on top of your desk or on a pull-out keyboard tray underneath it (which is actually the recommendation), it should be a comfortable level of between 27 and 29 inches from the floor depending on how tall you are. There should be sufficient distance between your shoulders and the keyboard so as to prevent any stress or strain in that area, as well as in your elbows and wrists as you type.

Lighting
The lighting you choose can greatly affect the quality the work you produce. The computer screen is quite bright in itself and adding even more intensity to that with the wrong lighting can cause headaches as well as eye strain. A good idea is to utilize a lamp that has a dimmer mechanism so that you can adjust it to your personal preference.

And don’t forget to take regular breaks from the computer! Sometimes we get so caught up in what we’re working on that we forget to do this. But getting up and stretching your back and muscles as well as giving your eyes a rest will greatly help you in the long run.

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Appropriately Applying Perfume

It is easy to recognize when someone else is wearing too much perfume or cologne. They walk by you and an obnoxious wafting of overpowering fragrance turns you from the potentially pleasant aroma. Yet the people wafting by you have no idea that they are hindering your nasal experience with the bath they apparently took in their fragrance prior to leaving their house.
   
It can be annoying at the very least to have to sit near someone in the work environment that has been doused excessively in their favorite scent. For asthmatics or people with allergies, it is more than a mere annoyance. It is a health distraction that prohibits them from being comfortable in the workplace.
   
Since it’s so easy to recognize when someone else is wearing way too much perfume, it should be just as easy to recognize when you yourself are the perfume bathed culprit. Not true. When a person douses themselves with perfume they are unaware that they do not have the same sensitive sense of smell that most people do. This can occur for a variety of reasons.
   
Some people simply do not have a very strong sense of smell. They can’t determine aroma unless it is very strong. If you notice that other people seem to smell things that you can’t, it is likely that your sense of smell is less than stellar.
   
Years of cigarette smoking can impact someone’s sense of smell. An attempt to cover up cigarette smoke also tends to lead to over dosing on aromatic fragrances. It doesn’t work. You simply smell like smoke and too much fragrance. Sweet smelling hand lotions are more effective at covering smoke smells.
   
The basic rule of application to avoid overdosing is really very simple. Spray the scent upwards in the air directly in front of you and then walk through it. Spraying it directly on your skin or your clothes can easily lead to an accidental overspray. Just because it doesn’t smell very strong to you after an application doesn’t mean that other people won’t smell it. Perfume is designed to waft in their air after you, not necessarily linger about your presence like an overwhelming cloud.
   
It’s not easy to tell whether you are wearing the appropriate amount of fragrance. One simply way to find out is to simply ask someone you trust to tell you the truth. Ask a couple of people considering that nasal sensitivity varies. If they find your perfume overpowering, they will tell you. If they can’t smell it at all, then you know. It is easier to make adjustments based on the opinions of others.

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Let Your Computer Earn You An Income On The Internet

Home Based Internet Business Opportunities are the present fad, and the future goldmine. The Income Earning possibilities from the comfort of your own home are immeasurable.

As with any business venture though, you must have your mind set to work hard, be patient, and devote the time necessary to see your efforts deliver the rewards you so richly deserve. Also, set your budget and stick to it. If you are low on funds, then take advantage of the many free advertising opportunities available to get your Income Producing Home Based Internet Business up and running. Check out a couple of Free Advertising possibilities at:

http://www.linkbrander.com/go/30683

http://www.linkbrander.com/go/30685

Maybe at this stage you are unsure as to what direction your Home Based Internet Business will take. You do not have to be an outstanding salesperson to succeed, however the more confident you are, the easier it will be for you to market your product/s online. There is an endless supply of Network Marketing Opportunities and Affiliate Programs available to have your Home Based Internet Business started up in no time. However, do not start signing up for too many without first ensuring that you are comfortable, interested and confident with the product or idea. It is far too easy to let the thought of making serious, easy money cloud your good sense and judgement. Tread carefully and you will reap the benefits.

If you have got your own idea on a product/s to market on the Internet, then you have a head-start on those who do not. It could be anything from Stuffed Toys to Handmade Blankets, Homemade Sweets & Biscuits to Jewellery, Toys, Furniture, or maybe even a Book you have written. If you have the desire to sell from your own Website, advertise your product/s or idea/s constantly and aggressively through your very own Home Based Internet Business.

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What To Look For In A Web Host

Are you looking to build yourself a website? Trying to give yourself a presence on the internet? Then you would definitely be needing a web host to host your site on.

First thing to think about though when looking for a web host is the sort of website you are thinking of creating. Is it going to be a just a personal site about yourself and your CV, Is it going to be a family site with lots of family pictures? Thinking of setting up a busy forum about your favourite hobby, or a game server to play your favourite games online with friends or are you even contemplating having multiple sites? All this questions would have to be answered before you embark on your search for a suitable host.

One thing you would notice straight away is most hosts have plans providing you with gigabytes of space and bandwidth. This could lead you to believe your site would take that much space which could then lead you into comparing hosts by comparing the amount of space made available to you going for the company that offers the largest space. (I have seen a company offering 100Gigabyte of space once). The truth is most websites don’t even use anywhere close to that amount of space. Majority of sites don’t even use up to 1Gb of space. The average website on the internet today uses less than 50MB of space (yes you read that correctly 50MB). Even an album based website for example a family website with family pictures would still use less than 500MB of space. But don’t take my word for it, If you can, build your website offline first of all using a site building software such as dreamweaver or nVU, exactly how you want it to be online with all the images and you would discover how very little space it uses up. It is therefore possible to have several websites on just 500MB of online space.

So I here you ask, why do hosting companies offer as much as 5-100Gb of space in their plans? Well the truth is because they all want to appear competitive.

They know your site wouldn’t use that much space and they know you most likely don’t know that, so they try and prey on the natural human trait known as GREED. Out of greed, people would always want to get the most of something they can even though they wouldn’t use all of it. I have even seen some companies offering Unlimited disk space which is just laughable.

So do these companies have so much space to offer everyone? As you guessed it, the answer is no. What happens is they oversell! Because they know you most likely wouldn’t use anywhere near your allocated space, they oversell to make as much money from you as they can before you finally transfer to someone else.

And if a client comes along with an extremely heavy website and does use even 75% of the space allocated to him, he would most likely get kicked off by the host provider with the reason that he’s using too many server resources.

Another trick of the trade is the amount of sites you can have on your accounts also known as ‘add-on domains’ on your account. One could assume that if you cannot fill 5Gb with a single website, then maybe perhaps you could fill it with several websites. Well these 'overselling' companies have thought about this too and what they do is limit the amount of websites you can have per account. So on say a 5Gb account, you may only be allowed to have 2 websites or add-on domains.

Bandwidth is another thing to look out for. But like disk space, you usually don’t use close to what is being offered, and this is also grossly oversold. Bandwidth is basically the amount of data that is transferred from and to your hosting account everymonth. Technically you can work out the amount of bandwidth you are going to need by using this formula:

[Average size of your webpages + any graphics used] x [The number of visitors you expect each day x Number of pages each visitor would view] x [30 days] = Total Bandwidth for the month.

For example for a 30 page website averaging 8kb per page, and 50kb worth of images on each page. If you get 50 visitors a day viewing an average of 4 pages each, the total bandwidth for the month would be [8 KB + 50 KB] * [50 visitors * 4 pages] * [30 days in a month] = 348,000 KB. Therefore this site would use a bandwidth of approximately 348Mb per month which is well within limitations of any hosting company.

Therefore what should you look for when choosing a hosting company? The most important thing to look at is the server specs the company uses, and just as important the support they provide to their clients. By seeing how much effort a company has put into to develop their support department would tell you the sort of experience you would have with them. Is their support just an email address? If so then you probably wouln’t want to be with them. Does their support have a knowledge base? Ready made questions and answers, video tutorials to show you visually how to solve the most common problems? An email ticketing system so if you do email them, responses can be tracked? Live chat so a quick question can be answered instantly? A good host that is not just worried about their profits would invest the time and energy into making all these available for their current and potential clients.

So when next you are out shopping for a webhost, don't just look at the amount of space and bandwidth you get, also look at the support available to you if a problem arises as it almost always does.

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Choosing A Quality Web Host

If you are individual enjoy me, you'd current love to have a website on the Internet but you fitting have no impression how to lick about it. All this introduction of net hosting, bandwidth, tape space, and other jargon can cause one to say, "This is too complicated and technical, I just wanted to have a place to put all of my favorite skateboarding photos, cool information on ramp designs, and the best places to skate!" To get a website on the Web you have to go through a web host. The question is how do you find the web host for you? If you type 'web host' into your search engine like Google you will get thousands of sites. Hit on one of these and like any product on the market you will see all sorts of persuasive propaganda to incite you to use their company; that is if you can decipher any of the technical jargon that only computer-heads can comprehend.

Some web hosts offer free business cards with an account; some probably offer free watches?like all consumer industries you the buyer must beware. I'm a writer so I'll use the analogy of a writer's journal. The journal I like must not be too big or small in book size. It also must have a good amount of space allocated to each day, again not a whole page but not just a few lines. Of course I also want it to be cheap but of a good quality that won't fall apart while I'm using it, and I hope it would last for posterity. I just want the diary, some nice pictures in it are O.K. but unnecessary especially if it adds to the price. It's the same with a web host and web site scenario. You want to get the right deal for you, enough space and enough access to the public that you wish to associate with. As a novice who doesn't understand all the jargon this can pose a problem. Are you an individual, small business, blog, or a big time corporation? What do you need and how do you get it? As far as I can tell the web hosting business is a lot like the fast food business.

The big corporations have strict guidelines, will offer you special deals, and have monthly 'cheeseburger specials'. But, I've always been more interested in the 'Mom and Pop' small time diners who have that real caring human approach. You know you are a customer and a person, not just a number on a sales receipt. I believe the hosting companies are the same. A smaller hosting company will probably treat its users with more honest integrity as well as having more flexibility in dealing with your individual situation. They can often tailor web site packages to accommodate exactly what you are looking for as well as the ability to update them quickly when your needs change. My advice is to contact a few of the smaller companies.

Look for ones with good reputations or just arbitrarily email them and compare results from different places. Which one do you feel most comfortable with? Go for it; ask as many questions as you can, see how the different hosts differ in their answers. Try one; if it doesn't work out try another, it's really easy to move around. Don't be afraid, you've got nothing to lose except the fear itself!

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A Web Hosting Directory Can Assist Your Search For A Host

As the popularity and power of the Internet continues to grow, so does the online community of websites that promote businesses, entertainment, commerce, and social destinations. For those who choose to establish an online presence through the creation of a website, a number of decisions must be made in order to give your website every opportunity for success; not the least of which is the choice of a web host that can effectively service your site. But finding an appropriate web host from among the thousands that offer the service can be a bit like hunting a needle in a haystack. A web hosting directory, however, can offer a starting point for your search.

In order to place your website online you must do so through a web host – a company or individual that offers access to the Internet through a server. While complex sounding, a server is nothing more than a high-powered computer that has open communication to release and receive information throughout the network of computers that make up the World Wide Web. A web host then offers websites “space” within their server – for which they pay a monthly or yearly “rental” fee. Once a website has secured space on a host server they are considered to be online. A website owner, in order to find the host that best suits their needs and get online, must search among the companies that offer hosting services. A web hosting directory offers a comprehensive list of companies and individuals that offer hosting services.

A web hosting directory will list host providers, the services they offer, and the prices at which they offer them. Most importantly, however, a web hosting directory will provide contact information for web hosts; and this is where the real research begins.

You can certainly narrow down your search for a web host with the use of a web hosting directory. You must first determine how much space your website will require on a host server – depending on the size of the files and graphics that your site will store and the amount of traffic it receives. You can tell a lot about a host through a web hosting directory including the space it can provide your website, the security measures it can offer, the prices it charges, and its commitment to customer service.

Once you have narrowed down your search, you can utilize a web hosting directory to contact those hosts in which you are interested. At that time you should be prepared to ask a number of questions including inquiring as to their level of experience, ability to host your particular site and the services that will be unique to it, and the features that it may offer through a web hosting plan. Consider a web hosting directory to be your ultimate reference guide to establishing your website online.

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Using A Web Hosting Forum To Find Your Next Host

The Internet has given us a whole new world in which to communicate and part of what we do in the spirit of that communication is discuss different topics through what are called forums – an open discussion group where participants post messages on a variety of topics and engage in back and forth dialogue. The topics of the forums are generally determined by the nature of the website on which they are hosted and participants are often asked to become members of the website in order to take part in the discussion. Interestingly enough, in some cases, the topic being discussed on the Internet is the Internet itself. In fact, more and more people find a web hosting forum to be a helpful place to exchange information on the myriad of decisions involved in choosing and handling a web host.

A web host is imperative to the creation and operation of a website of any kind. In essence, a host is a company or individual that offers unlimited access to the Internet through its server – a computer that gives and receives information from other computers. The host server is “plugged” into the Internet at all times – other than when they are down for service or due to technical difficulties. When you create a website you “rent” space online from the web host; in exchange for your monthly rental fee, the web host offers you territory on its server so that your website is connected to the Internet. If you are looking to start a website or have a website and are in search of an effective host, a web hosting forum can be crucial in determining what has been successful for other website owners.

For instance, in a web hosting forum consumers can find other websites that have about the same level of traffic as their own and ask the owners what web host has been successful for them. While a web host should offer almost unlimited access to the Internet, there are some that have a reputation for being offline more frequently that one would expect. Additionally, not all web hosts can handle the traffic that is generated by every website. It is worth finding a more comprehensive web host if your website receives quite a bit of traffic as opposed to smaller companies that receive a lower traffic rate. A web hosting forum will help you find those hosts that effectively play to your website’s strengths.

There is also the possibility of finding a web hosting forum that is created for web hosts themselves. Web hosts are a unique community that understands each other’s tribulations. Such a forum provides a place and an opportunity for hosts to discuss the unique challenges of their industry.

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5 Things To Look For In A Promising Web Host

Finding a promising web hosting company for your internet based business is an essential piece to the puzzle. This is the company that has control of your server space, web services and file maintenance, so you want to make sure you are protected. Here are 5 things to look for in a promising web host.

1. Reliability
There is nothing more important than reliability when it comes to selecting a web hosting company. There are a number of things that can go wrong within an internet based business and it is assuring to know that your web host is there for you. Prior to selecting a company, take the time to look at the percentage of time their server is working properly. If the server tends to be down 15% of the time or more, this kills valuable time that you could be working.

2. Contact info
Part of a web hosting company being reliable is also them being available. If your server goes down, you want to know that you can get a hold of the company as soon as possible. The best way to check on the support personnel is to call them up prior to agreeing to anything to test them out.

3. Domain name
With thousands of internet based businesses on the web and millions of web addresses already taken, it can be difficult coming up with an original domain name. However, every web host should be able to provide you with one for a reasonable price. Check into the support they give you for finding a quality domain name and the prices each company charges for a domain name.

4. CGI access
Depending on the type of internet based business you have, you may want to or need to run your own programs. In order to do this, you must have CGI access. Not every web host offers this, and not every company offers the same capabilities for their CGI access. When researching into a web hosting company, check to make sure they offer CGI access that allows you to read, write, and execute on your server.

5. POP account
Having a POP account is vital for your business because of the protection that it offers. A POP account gives you password-protected access to mail that is sent through your website email address.

There are several things you want to look into prior to selecting a web hosting company. The more questions you can come up with to ask the company and the more research you put into your decision, the better off you will be.

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