Choosing a Web Host - Shared Or Dedicated Hosting?

You are new to this web hosting world and you have just made your first website. Now as you are searching for a web host to host the site, you came across two types of web host - shared and dedicated. And this confuses you further; what differentiates these two and which one you should choose?

Basically what separates these plans is that how the server is used. For a shared plan, as the name points out, you are actually sharing your server with many other websites that are using the same plan. This means you have to share the bandwidth and other web resources with the websites on the server. Dedicated plan on the other have gives the lease gets full ownership of the server.

There are more to these plans that the definition above. The details will be discussed below.

First and foremost let us go into shared plan. The main highlight of the plan is its price. As you are sharing the hosted resources as well as the running costs incurred with hundreds of other websites it brings down your monthly rental fee. This in turn makes it affordable. Because of high competition in this niche you can really get good bargains in terms of web space and bandwidth.

Besides, shared web host solutions have a 'what you see what you get interface' or WYSIWYG which can be really user friendly. Most of the web hosts provide Graphical User Interface (GUI) such as windows which allows you to upload and delete files easily. Besides that the GUI also gives easy access to webmaster tools such as site visitors statistics.

Last but not least shared web hosting plans are fast, wastage free and easy to maintained. You can focus more on building your website as shared web hosting plans are maintained by web professionals. As you will only use what your website needs you tend to have less wastage of web resources unlike dedicated web server host. Just in case you have reached your web plan limit, you can always purchase more.

Moving on to dedicated host plan, the main advantage of using dedicated host plan is that you get to control what is uploaded into your server entirely as you do not have to share the resources with hundreds of other websites. This means you can have all the web resources at your disposal. This plan is ideal for high traffic websites. As dedicated web hosts usually offer unlimited bandwidth, it is a better choice if your website attracts heavy traffics.

Dedicated servers would not have the risk of being blocked by search engines as shared servers do. This is because dedicated servers have their own unique Internet Protocol or IP addresses. Shared server on the other hand has to share it's IP addresses among all the other websites in it. Therefore if one of the websites are carrying out illegal activities such spamming and so on the entire server will get blacklisted and so your website will be blocked or listed as 'high risk' site.

In summary, before deciding which plan to choose consider your web site's basic need. Whether it will need all time high bandwidth, or will it consume a lot of web space. Do not forget that growth impact of your website over time. Do a rough forecast of how much of web resources such as memory, web space and bandwidth that your website is likely to use with time.

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Web-Hosting Providers and Customer Service

The most important part of choosing a quality webhosting provider is reliability. However, "reliability" is not the only factor when deciding on a quality webhost to use. If you were to assume that most webhosting companies are technically competent and therefore have consistently upgraded their systems as well as offering products that are well priced, then a major component of web hosting reliability comes down to the quality of their customer service.

What you really want to know is, "If there's a problem with my website, will I get fast and reliable service?"

With inferior webhosting companies, quality customer service can be a major problem. If you've ever talked to a webhosting technical support representative you may get the impression that they are handling three or four calls all at the same time. Bad service can lead to frustrating conversations with your assigned tech person and makes it much more difficult to get the service you need.

For example, we recently had a problem with one of our webhosting providers. The problem had to do with accessing some of our sites to make changes. We have been doing website building for years, and with many different webhosts, but this was the very first time we ever experienced this specific problem.

While we were open to the possibility that the problem is somewhere on our end, it seemed that was unlikely. All of our websites with this webhost seem to have this same issue, and not with any of the other webhosting providers that we use. Regardless, we were looking for some intelligent suggestions to resolve the problem in a timely manner.

To this point we have not been able to get a satisfactory response, even though it has been happening for almost a month. I typically get the standard response: "Have you tried this and that?" All of these responss imply that the problem must be on our end, and none give the impression that they are actually thinking about what is going on with their servers etc.

While we can understand the technical support person's dilemma, we still need to resolve the problem. In our experience, most tech support people have seen these problems in the past, and they probably have the answer. But sometimes, is just very difficult to get them to actually focus on your issue.

This only further confirms what marketing people have been saying for years about "customer service". Customer service is extremely important in every business, but especially with Webhosting providers.

Unfortunately many webhosting tech support personnel don't seem to understand this. They often consider themselves superior to their clients which is mistake. As a result they have been able to get away with unreliable service because it is just too inconvenient for clients to change webhosting providers.

While we we agree that none of this is completely fool proof, you do deserve a great webhosting provider. Also, given the highly competitive nature of the webhosting business, a simple, straightforward customer-focused approach is what you should be looking for in a webhosting provider.

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Free Web Hosting - Revealing the Truth of Free Web Hosting

Choosing Free Web Hosting over a paid option should, in theory, be based solely upon on the type of web presence that you are contemplating, rather than cost. The alternative can ultimately end up restricting your growth down the track.

By understanding the advantages and disadvantages of Free Web Hosting you can make an informed decision. The following is a common sense summary of the advantages and disadvantages of using a Free Web Hosting option.

Advantages

1. A no cost/Free service allowing you to get a web presence.
2. Excellent for non business " i.e. students, uploading small text documents, non profit organisations and or families " all with small disk space and bandwidth requirements.
3. Best when there is only limited traffic to the site.

Disadvantages

1. The web host provider will often insist that their name is in the domain name.
2. Limited bandwidth is offered. OK to start but limiting to future growth.
3. Linking to files is often not offered. Linking can be especially important SEO component for driving organic traffic to your website.
4. Restricted storage space
5. Uptime is not assured. Unreliability causes a lack of confidence amongst your customers.
6. The Free Web Hosting will often insist that they insert unrelated advertising on the web page that may distract and annoy visitors.
7. Limited or not guaranteed level of customer support.
8. Special features are limited" i.e. PHP, MySQL, FTP accounts and POP email.
9. Susceptible to spamming
10. Graphics are restricted as they reduce the amount of available advertising space for the free web provider. This restriction reduces the amount of brand presence you can place on your site.

Any discussion on whether to go Free or paid web hosting is further complicated by the fact that for as much as $5 a month, a web hosting company will promised 24/7 customer support, along with a stream of other special features, such as

1. Disk space varying from anything up to unlimited
2. Bandwidth unlimited
3. Unlimited number of domains
4. The option to use either a UNIX or Windows servers
5. 24/7 telephone support.
6. Shared or dedicated hosting environment, depending on your needs.

Before making the decision to go either with a Free or paid hosting provider, you should consider your current and future needs. It is so often the case that any short term gains are in fact outweighed by possible long term problems.

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Linux Vs Windows Web Hosting Servers

Most of the time when working in web development there will be two types of operating systems for a web server, Linux and Windows. When you hear Linux Server and Windows Server, you are just hearing the different operating systems the server will be running. This can be a big deal if you have certain expectations. Usually you will have one main question, which one is better? There really isn't an answer to this. It is more on the developer and what he is trying to accomplish.

Operating System Common Features

There are a few common features both Windows and Linux will provide. One is how you transfer your files. Both Windows and Linux support FTP access to edit, delete or transfer files. Both operating system can render some of the same file types. HTML (.html) and JavaScript (.js) are both commonly used on both platforms. You can also run CGI in Linux and Windows. CGI is an application that is similar to writing in Perl or C#. This can help with forms and dynamic content, usually used with shopping carts. MYSQL Database and PHP can run on both Linux and Windows, but these two web development languages are more common on Linux.

Linux Operating System Server

Linux Web Hosting is probably the most used server operating system in the market. Most developers love Linux because it is open source and will support PHP and MySQL perfectly. The plus side of all of these great features is that Linux, PHP and MySQL is all FREE! They cost nothing and are all open source applications.

PHP and MySQL can be coded together to make anything possible. PHP can run on different platforms like Windows, but most of the time it is ran through Linux. They use the same tags and attributes as HTML, but you can include functions and scripts to be ran on the server side. Making Dynamic pages that will pull data, insert data, or modify data in a MySQL table. PHP can also support different tables such as Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC.

Linux Top Advantage - FREE & Open Source!

Windows Operating System Server

Should you go with Windows? It really matters on what coding language you are going to develop with and what your end goal of your project is. Most Web Developers will code PHP and MySQL on a Linux Server. Some have moved to ASP coding language that is only supported on a Windows Server. ASP coding is a very universal coding language.

Windows Web Hosting has become more and more popular as web developers look into ASP. ASP is a server coding language that is only supported on a Windows Server. ASP stands for Active Server Pages which is a free component with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It can also be found in the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack.

ASP coding language is a lot like a HTML file. This will contain different tabs and attributes as HTML or XML. What makes ASP different from HTML is that the request is read through the server and executes the ASP function or script of the file. ASP can run coding languages that are similar to computer programming languages. ASP can link to different database languages.

Windows Top Advantage - Easier to Config

Security Issues and Concerns

One quick thought about both Linux and Windows servers is which is better for security. Security is one of your biggest concerns when having a website and even more when you have an ecommerce store. The sad thing about this topic is that it is an argument that will never be solved. It all comes down to if the hacker wants in or not. They both have security problems. The best way to prevent anything from happening is having a good web administrator or a good web hosting company. Having one or both of these will keep your mind at ease.

Which Web Operating System is Better?

Looking at some of the features, neither is better than the other. There are just some advantages and disadvantages of both. Finding what your website needs is the decision maker. Windows or Linux can both be used for your advantage. Some web developers love to use one or the other because of what they are used to. Some web developers only use one or the other because of the coding language they will be using. Remember there are pros and cons to both, but a website is made by the web developer, not the operating system.

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Cheap Web Hosting - A Bet Or Not?

If you are in need of a website hosting service and you have done some searches for that on the internet, chances are that you have come across some services that claim to offer professional level web hosting services at highly affordable rates or low rates. Some people get confused hearing or reading the phrase ‘low-priced internet site hosting service.’ They ask rather wonder that if the inexpensive website storage service providers claim that their service will be of the professional level, how come then are they able to offer it so cheaply. Then people start comparing in their minds the service providers who charge quite a considerable amount for their services with the ones who offer inexpensive website storage services. People then start getting wrong ideas about low-cost website storage services as well as those which are not cheap. Wrong ideas such as either those service providers who offer their services at economical rates must be compromising at quality or those service providers who are not economical must be charging extra. In this confusion, some people make some bad professional decisions and end up with serious internet site stationing problems with their website projects.

While it is not necessary that a low-priced website hosting service provider will be compromising at quality and not so easy on the pocket service provider will be charging extra, it is, however, not the case always. True that some swindlers have made bad named the two types: Honest, good cost-effective website storage space providers and not so discounted ones. However, if people in need of a website stationing service learn to differentiate between swindlers and genuine economical service providers, they will be in a much better position to find a good, cheap website storage space provider.

This article aims to tell you what genuine, low-cost website hosting providers have in common. But first, let’s look at some of the reasons low-cost website host services exist in the first place.

There are some common sense reasons internet site storage service providers offer their services at inexpensive rates. One can be that they have just started their business and offering economical website host service to gain more and more customers. Another reason can be that they actually do not care about their income at this time, but just want to make popular their service. Another reason can be purely based on profits i.e. the company’s capital might not be a huge one and so they are able to offer discounted hosting to earn maximum possible ROI. Note that none of these reasons can make them compromise at quality and so they are able to provide good quality hosting for internet sites at easy on the pocket rates.

Now let’s have a look at the things that most good low-priced net site stationing providers have in common:

• Few, but thorough storage packages rather than a number of them that cause confusion
• Money back guarantee
• Instant backups
• 24/7 Support

Regardless of where you live in the world, selecting a truly professional web hosting service for your websites now should not be a hassle for you anymore. With the presence of many good web hosting solution providers on the World Wide Web, all you need to do is just read reviews and/or do some research to find the web hosting service that best meet your requirements. At http://www.starcomhosting.co.uk, we take great pride in being one of those web hosting services providing companies that say that we have a package for everybody.

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Setting Up an Online Business - What Can You Do to Ensure Success?

Like it or not, the internet has changed the face of society. From human interaction to business transaction, it has revolutionised the way daily life is conducted. As a result, people are now banking, shopping, talking and working online.

Arguably, the business world has seen one of the most significant transformations, with experts believing the future success of a business is now dependent on having a strong web presence. And, with the associated advantages, it's easy to see why.

In addition to offering up a global audience, businesses also have 24 hour, year round access to consumers. And, all of this can be achieved in a relatively cost-efficient manner. So, if you're thinking about setting up a business, it definitely pays to go online.

Many of the traditional, offline business principles can be applied to the starting-up of an internet company. However, there are some important issues to consider.

Firstly, you need to ascertain if your business idea will work online. For example, have you considered the practicality of shipping products to customers, or how much it will cost to do so? Is there even a market for what you want to offer? By conducting research, you'll be able to ascertain the viability of your idea.

It's also essential to produce a realistic business plan. Outlining your key aims, it is important for forecasting any targets you wish to achieve, as well as clearly identifying how, and when, you intend to make a profit. A good business plan will also help to attract financial investment.

The next consideration is your website. Here design, content and structure are the keywords to keep in mind. Research has found that when looking at a web page, it takes the brain a mere twentieth of a second to make decisions regarding that page. Therefore, it's crucial you make yours inviting, yet more importantly, user-friendly.

This can be achieved by keeping content to a minimum, choosing appropriate graphics and colours - you don't want to put people off with big flashing signs everywhere - and making the site accessible. Dependent on your experience, it may be worthwhile seeking professional advice.

You should also give careful consideration to the payment process on your website. Here it's important to make the system secure, fast and easy to use. In reality, nothing will turn customers away faster than complicated payment methods.

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The Most Important Web Hosting Feature

What about server uptime? It's potentially the most important part. Well, let's talk about what a web hosting is?Features: The basic plan called Tiny offers 75MB space and 1GB bandwidth per month with a yearly payment. The next one called Small is also suitable for starters, which offers 400MB disk space and 10GB bandwidth per month. One good feature of A Small Orange is that they have a policy of "no artificial limits", which according to them is placing no restriction on services that do not cost them, like adding domains, Emails etc. They claim, other hosting service providers place restrictions on these services to charge extra when you need them. As a result, they offer unlimited databases, sub-domains, add-on domains, FTP accounts and email forwaders etc. A Small Orange places restrictions on services that cost them, like disk space, bandwidth, memory size etc.

Don't ever underestimate this because it may cost you money later on. 1. Since all data passes through the packet sniffer, it first eliminates the need to use JavaScript tags for your website, or in theory, to touch your website at all. So in the future, to avoid losing their currently rapid rate of growth, the larger web hosts will have to begin offerings in some of the larger foreign markets to stay competitive. Some companies have already done this. For example, Hostgator launched "Hostgator Brazil" with a new. com.

The most confusing aspect is often just all the numbers. br domain in August 2007, as they noticed a large growth in customers from South America, particularly Brazil, to help cater to that target demographic. Hostgator has seen an explosion of international customers in the past year, as they now comprise over a third of the american company's customers. Hostgator plans to market more aggressively in Brazil in the future, and is dedicating more resources to the South American region. Expect other web hosting companies to follow suit, to expand into foreign regions. If other web hosting companies don't make the move into foreign markets, they may lose their competitive edge on some of their more savvy counterparts.

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