Category — Web Hosting

If you’re researching different web hosting plans, you’ve probably noticed that many web hosting packages come with free advertising credits.  But if you’ve never had a website before you probably don’t know how or when to use these advertising credits.  And if you’re not familiar with social media, these advertising credits may not hold that much appeal.  But with a bit of understanding and explanation you may begin to realize just how valuable these credits can be.

The benefits of online advertising credits:

Things to Know about Facebook Credits:

• You will need a Facebook account to use Facebook credits.
• Facebook credits received from most web hosts can be used for both new and existing accounts.
• You can use Facebook credits to promote your company’s Facebook page or to promote your website directly.
• With Facebook advertising you can target people who have interests in line with your product or service.
• When creating ads with Facebook credits you can schedule them to run at certain times or on certain days.
• Facebook offers comprehensive tracking and analytical tools to help you understand the successes and failures of your ads.

Things to Know about Google AdWords Credits:

• Google AdWords credits are most often valid only for new AdWords accounts. 
• If you have an existing AdWords account that is currently pointing to your website you’ll need to use your free advertising credits for a different account point to a different website or for a new account that uses a completely different set of keywords to point to the same website.
• You will need to enter billing information when setting up your AdWords account.  Even though you are using free advertising credits you’ll be required to pay a small activation fee.

Things to Know about Yahoo! Credits:

• Yahoo! Credits work similarly to Google advertising credits. 
• You will need a new account to use Yahoo! advertising credits.
• Fewer people use Yahoo!’s search engine than Google, but some studies indicate that those who use Yahoo!’s search engine may be more likely to convert. 
• A planned merger between Bing and Yahoo! will likely change the face of this type of advertising, so it’s worthwhile to proceed cautiously when planning your ads, in the hope that in the future this search engine will see a boost in traffic.

Good luck with your new web host and your free advertising credits!

In these days of tight budgets and constant expenses, it’s normal to want to find free alternatives to paid services.  Web hosting is one area in which there are several respectable free options – if you’re willing to compromise on certain aspects of your website.  The question becomes, however, when it is necessary to pay for web hosting services and when is free hosting a viable option?  Here are some things to consider when making this important decision.

1. Do you want a custom domain? Many free hosting services require you to take their domain name onto yours.  In other words, instead of having mysite.com, you’d have mysite.yolasite.com if you’re using Yola’s free hosting service and a similar extension if you’re using the free services offered by Wix, Network Solutions or one of the other dozens of free hosting providers available.
2. Do you want an ad-free website? Many free websites impose placement of advertising on websites built through their platform.  This may not bother you if you’re starting a family blog (or even a personal blog) or are just using the website to test out the features of the web host before committing.  If you’re looking to create a professional web presence, however, you may not want irrelevant ads cluttering the design of your site.
3. Do you need significant storage space or bandwidth? If you’re planning on hosting a site that contains video or audio files, you may need more storage space or bandwidth than most free web hosting service offer.  Likewise, if you’re planning on having heavy traffic to your site or hosting a database for your site, you’ll need a significant amount of storage.  Many free web hosting providers offer only 5-10 MB of storage, which is insufficient for sites that are more than just a few pages of text.  If you’re looking to post your artistic portfolio, to sell items through a product database or to stream videos directly from your site, you may want to pay for a web hosting service such as FatCow which offers unlimited storage for a very reasonable monthly fee.
4. Do you want a completely custom design? If you’re choosing free hosting services through a web design company that offers a free package you’ll likely be limited to specific design options instead of having the flexibility to choose from the full array of options.  If you’re choosing a free hosting option through a hosting provider such as i6Networks you’ll probably have full customization abilities – if you have the technical prowess to design and build your own site (and if you don’t, you’ll need to pay a significant sum for this service).
5. Do you plan to expand the scope of your site in the near future? If so, you’ll need to consider whether you’ll eventually outgrow your free hosting plan, and the expense that will be involved in transferring it to another web host, domain name or design.  These fees can add up – so if you think you’ll need to pay them soon, you may end up saving more money by paying for web hosting straight from the outset.
6. Do you want a search-engine-friendly site? Many free websites are not particularly search-engine-friendly and will not assist you in achieving natural web traffic.  If you’re looking to expand your audience through search engines, you may want to consider a paid web hosting service that is located in your country so that you can better target the audience you’re looking for.

Although free stuff always sounds appealing, when it comes to free hosting it’s important to remember that saving money now may not actually save you money in the long run.  However, the true benefit of using a free hosting package is because it allows you to test out the hosting service (and web design service when relevant) to see if you like it and whether you want to continue using this service in the long run.

There are so many web hosting services out there that it’s hard to choose the best hosting for your and your site.

A lot of site owners shop their hosting by price. Budget is an important thing to consider, but since the differences in hosting prices are negligible, there are other features and more important factors to consider when choosing the perfect hosting for you.

1. Uptime and Reliability

No matter how much fancy features the hosting offers you, they are no good if the site is down in many parts of the day. Look for hosting services that guarantee uptime, and tell you exactly how they implement this promise.

2. Customer and Technical Support

Customer support in a web hosting service should be efficient and effective, as well as polite and responsive. If you are quickly answered when contacting your hosting service, that’s a good sign. However, prompt responses aren’t enough – the hosting’s support should also be able to actually solve your problems. So – look for a combination of efficiency and responsiveness.

3. Control

If the hosting service offering you a full, user-friendly control panel? Do you have all the access you need? Is it easy to find all the functions you require for running your website? Is there proper documentation and help articles? If the answer is YES to all of these questions – than you are in the right place. The situation is ideal if you have full control of your site and can manage it on your own – most of the time.

4. Backups

A good hosting will not only enable you to back up your files, but will also do it for you, periodically. Choose a hosting service that backs up regularly.

5. Server Features

Whether you require a Linux or Windows server will depend on what you plan to do with your site. Linux servers are often cheaper, ideal for CMS like WordPress and Drupal and are more stable. However, if you need to host ASP scripts then you have no choice but to look for a Windows web host. A good hosting service will offer both kinds of servers, and enable you to move between plans when necessary.

Business owners, web developers and bloggers often feel that even a moment of downtime for their website can be a life-altering event. That’s why they try to choose web hosting services that have guaranteed uptime, are known for their reliability and are committed to providing top notch service. These days, however, being a top web hosting services may be about more than just customer service – it’s about giving to others as well.

Hosting for Haiti is an initiative sponsored by the American Red Cross and some of the top web hosting providers who have joined together to provide Haiti relief to those who have suffered devastating loss in January 12th’s earthquake. If you are still looking for the ideal web host, why not consider one that gives back to its customers and to others as well? You can help Haiti in a myriad of ways, but one of the easiest ways to help Haiti is to choose a web hosting company that has already pledged its support. Among the participants in the Hosting for Haiti initiative are:

- HostGator
- Rackspace Hosting
- Laughing Squid
- Softlayer
- Peer1 Hosting
- Go Grid
- HostDime

And, of course, once your site is live, don’t be afraid to help Haiti by publicizing the Hosting for Haiti initiative or any other Haiti relief efforts – you may be surprised at how even a little publicity can help raise tremendous funds for this critical cause.

Web applications make our lives easier – they can be accessed from almost anywhere, they are usually cheap or free and they are mostly very easy to use.

Using good web apps can really help you save time, money and effort. If you are a small business owner, web apps can turn things around for you, and enable you access to very sophisticated management tools and other aids.

2009 presented us with some marvelous web applications. We picked 10 of them for you to take a look and enjoy.

10 Great Web Applications – 2009

1. PhotoSnack - PhotoSnack offers a great and easy way to create slideshows. This web app lets you create photo slideshows and online photo galleries for free, and also offers you multiple ways of sharing and publishing your photo slideshows.
2. Adobe BrowserLab - This useful tool from Adobe is designed to make the life of web developers much easier – with it, you can preview and test your webpages on leading browsers and operating systems – on demand. You get full screenshots and can customize your test settings.
3. Office Live - This Microsoft web service enables you to store up to 5GB, share with anyone, and collaborate on a single document. You can view Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint files from your Web browser.
4. DimDim - A free web conferencing service,  that lets everyone everywhere to communicate using rich media in real time. Dimdim is easy to use and completely free, so web meetings are made available to everyone.
5. Color Scheme Designer - A wonderful tool for designers and web developers. This web app has increased precision and color space conversions, better preview, enhanced scheme creation system, unique scheme IDs and permanent URL of the scheme.
6. PDF to Excel - A very useful conversion tool. Use PDF to Excel to quickly and easily create highly-editable XLS files, making it a cinch to re-use tables and spreadsheets from PDF files in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, Google Docs, and WordPerfect Office.
7. Creatly - A tool for creating online diagrams. Create fast, professional looking diagrams with Creately’s large library of objects and easy start templates. Now you can draw anything easily.
8. 247Webmonitoring - Even if you have the best hosting service, you need to keep an eye on your site’s up-time. This web app will monitor your website 24X7 from their servers and notify you whenever your site goes down, so that you can quickly address the issue and keep your customers happy.
9. Preezo - If you can’t afford PowerPoint, this is the solution for you. Preezo enables you to create professional quality presentations using an ultra-fast Ajax user interface.
10. Live Mesh - With Live Mesh, you can synchronize files with all of your devices, so you always have the latest versions handy. Access your files from any device or from the web, easily share them with others, and get notified whenever someone changes a file. Very useful for people who are always on the go.

The year 2009 is officially over, and now we can look back at some of the interesting events that took place, regarding web hosting.

There’s no doubt that the major issue of 2009 in web hosting was security threats – spam, phising scams, scripts and hacks were very common, and hit some of the major web hosting services.

Although spam levels are down from this same time last year, spammers and bot creators continued to harass the Internet Many more institutions  and authorities are picking up the fight and are actively attempting to counter the botnet threat, in one way or another.

The competition between web hosting providers grew hotter in 2009. As the demand for cheap web hosting services grew, the prices went down, and hosting services went for as cheap as $1.99 per month.

According to webhosting.info, the fastest growing domain registrar is GoDaddy, followed by xinnet.com and onamae.com.

Web hosting services such as FatCow showed an impressive growth. iPage is also one of the fastest growing hosting services of 2009.

This year also saw the end of one of the first hosting services of the internet - Geocities. After 15 years of offering people the ability to set up their own website, Geocities has closed down for good. Yahoo acquired Geocities for 3.57 billion U.S. dollars in 1999. Geocities sites are no longer be accessible, but some pages will still be accessible via the  Internet Archive project.

2009 was a very good year for open source CMS. WordPress has been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. Drupal has won the inaugural Hall of Fame Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. With this award, Drupal has won two categories this year, the other one being Best Open Source PHP CMS.

Technology-wise, the original promise of cloud computing is finally being realized and implemented by both consumers and businesses thanks to advances in hosting software and technology. The developments in the web hosting arena are quickly meeting the needs of individuals and businesses, and paving the way for more exciting technologies and features.

Creating a website these days is easier than ever. Web hosting has become affordable and sophisticated, and there are many web development technologies to choose from.

Content Management Systems (or CMS) are becoming increasingly popular. There is a larger variety of  CMS to choose from, and you can use these systems to create complex, bit sites, with tons of content.

What is a CMS?

A CMS is a software or we application, for creating and processing documents and other content (such as images, video and audio). A content management system is frequently a web application used for managing websites and web content. Often, content management systems require special client software for editing and constructing articles. There are many open-source and proprietary solutions available.

In short, a CMS enables you to fully control the content of your website, making it easier to manage and update it.

The Advantages of CMS

There are many advantages for having your site built with a CMS. Here are some of them:

1. Full control: With a good CMS, you can do anything on your site: add or delete pages, create a blog, add photo galleries and easily update the content of your site.
2. Access from anywhere: If you are using a CMS, all you need to update your site is an internet connection and a browser. There’s usually no need to install software on your computer.
3. Search engine friendly: Popular content management systems, such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are very popular with search engines, and make for higher ranking sites.
4. Frequent updates: When it’s easy and fun to update your site, you’ll do so more often. Search engine love updated sites.
5. DIY: Many content management systems are very easy to install. You can build your website all by yourself.
6. Great support: Since many CMS are open-source, they have a huge community that constantly updates the system, creates plugins and add-ons and offers friendly support when you encounter difficulties.

Web hosting is always changing and updating. If you own a site, or planning to build one, it’s important to know what’s new in the web hosting services arena. Here’s a collection of news and updates of web hosting, hosting services and web development:

Deutsche Telekom takes over Web Hosting Service Strato

Deutsche Telekom informed it will take over Strato, a German Web hosting company. The boards of both companies had approved the plan but that it still faces regulatory approvals.Financial details were not disclosed.

Telekom claims the transaction would make it a leader in the German Web hosting market with Strato’s products that include and enable email, Web sites, blogs, online shopping and data storage. Strato’s business is primarily aimed at consumers and small businesses.

Strato, based in Berlin operates about 4 million hosted domains.

UK Web Hosting Service Namesco Buys Poundhost

UK domain registrar and web hosting provider Namesco has acquired UK dedicated hosting provider Poundhost. This is the first major acquisition for Namesco since May 2008.

Namesco is currently the fourth largest domain name and hosting provider within the UK. The company will own 100% of the capital of the companies composing Poundhost, including Poundhost Internet, Server Arcade, VPS and Blueconnex.

Poundhost has over 10,000 dedicated and virtual servers and a large high-end customer base, 30% of which resides in the US.

Hosting Service Site5 Plants A Tree for Each New Hosting Account

Although world leaders fail to reach a binding climate agreement this year in Copenhagen, there is still hope and action at the grassroots level. Web hosting service Site5 has partnered with mokugift to plant a tree for every new hosting account.

“Tree-planting with new accounts is a natural extension of Site5’s existing environmental philosophy. Site5’s business was designed around a remote workforce which is the greenest possible option for a company”, explained Ben Welch-Bolen, CEO of Site5.

Cheap, quick and efficient – that’s Just Host web hosting for you.

With an amazing price of only $3.45 a month, it’s really hard to compete with this cheap shared hosting service.

Just Host Shared Hosting Package

So, what exactly do you get from JustHost? Here’s the deal they offer for $3.45:

• Unlimited Space - No need to worry about storage – you have all the room you need for your files.
• Unlimited GB’s of Transfer - Excellent for popular sites with lots of traffic.
• Unlimited Domain Hosting - This means you can build as many sites as you want.
• Unlimited E-Mail Accounts - A nice feature – give an email account to all your employees.
• Unlimited MySQL Databases - Great for CMS users, like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc.
• FREE Site Builder - A wonderful feature for beginners.
• FREE Domain for Life - Saves you some money and trouble.
• Anytime Money Back Guarantee - JustHost are so sure you’ll be happy, they offer this guarantee without hesitation.

Just Host Features

Just Host promises 99.9% uptime for your site. Although this isn’t an unusual feature, Just Host are so concerned about uptime that they set up their own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called Just Uptime. All Just Host’s servers are monitored by Just Uptime.

Just Host guarantees reliability through load balancing technology and super fast backbone connections. With load balancing, your site is available from multiple servers, so if one server becomes unavailable, your site will still be online and accessible for your customers.

Just Host uses cPanel, which is an excellent control panel, which makes it simple to manage all aspects of your site. With this control panel, you can upload files, create databases, manage email accounts, create redirections, watch your site stats, manage FTP accounts and much more.

Just Host Customer Support

Customer support is one of the most important aspects of web hosting services. When you choose your hosting service, you need to pay special attention to what they offer in terms of support. Quick response and competent representatives are the most important features of a good customer support.

Just Host will answer your email in 20 minutes or less and they answer the phones after less than 3 minutes – that’s what we call a quick service.

Finally, Just Host employs English speaking experts that will be able to solve your problems quickly and efficiently.

The successful Moo Crew Support Team has played a major role in helping FatCow secure a high ranking among the top ten web hosting providers on Consumer-Rankings.com. We talked to Gary Engel, Senior Vice President of Customer Support at FatCow, to find out how they do it.

Q: What’s unique about FatCow’s customer support?

A: “Our HefferCratic Oath sets us apart from other web hosting providers because when it comes to customer support, we put our money where our mouth is. If customers feel we haven’t kept up our side of the bargain – by answering calls in less than two minutes on average, providing answers to your questions at that time or a firm follow-up deadline – they receive a credit to their account equal to a free month of hosting.”

“All levels of our support team regularly meet with our engineers and network managers to talk through questions from customers. Our follow-up measures also make us unique – if we feel it’s appropriate, we’ll have a support representative at the management level personally check in with customers for feedback on how their questions were resolved. We also survey all customers who contact us to learn how we can improve our system.”

Q: How can new FatCow customers get off to a successful start?

GE: “We’ve designed our control panel so that it’s easy to use, but we realize that some customers need something extra to really get their sites up and running. That’s why we created our JumpStart service, which gives customers one-on-one time with our best agents to get a feel for the tools and services available.”

“Our QuickStart feature is a free service we offer that instructs customers on adding a domain, the options they have in setting up a mailbox, and introduces them to our website building tools. Customers can also refer to our Knowledgebase, a collection of articles offering technical assistance and helpful background information on products and services, and dozens of multimedia tutorials that provide visual step-by-step instruction. And of course, we are available 24/7 to answer any questions they have.”

Q: How do you ensure your customers receive quality service?

A:” We have a vigorous quality assurance process in place to both maintain our policies and identify how we can improve our training. We conduct separate audits of customer contacts – by phone, email and chat – then compare those audits for an accurate assessment, which ultimately drives our training schedule and new policies. We monitor call wait times, the time it takes to reach first time resolutions and the number of tickets that are escalated to tier-two specialists, which provides us with a broader scope of our support performance.”

“We’ve synthesized the information we obtain from this process on our internal Support Wiki. The wiki provides our agents with a searchable written resource that’s reliable and always up-to-date.”

“Customer surveys also play an important role here, because they give our customers the opportunity to “QA” our support staff right along with us.”

Q: How do you actually use the information from customers to improve your services?

A: “We use the information to improve the overall quality of our customer support. We use customer feedback from surveys and follow-up calls along with internal audits to examine agents’ performance on an individual basis. That’s how we identify strengths and areas that require additional instruction, which are then worked into our training process. Our goal is to provide reliable web hosting, and this process plays a major part in fulfilling that goal.”