Pretty_Horse asked:


A userfriendly web site with an option to use your own HTML would be nice. And of course a good price as well!

Web Hosting asked:


Web hosting may be defined as renting space on a web server in its simplest form. One should keep in mind that a website is a collection of files linked together by HTML code to display text and graphics on a computer. However website is not complete here until and unless it is displayed on the net. To make it visible for the world it has to be housed on a computer somewhere that has access to the Internet. This is not possible by just a computer rather special device is required termed as web server. A web server may be defined as a computer set up with special software that allows it to receive requests from the internet for the website files it has stored on it and to send those files out over the internet so that the requesting computer can display them.

Web server in addition to making site visible performs several other functions as well like it provides the ability to create email addresses based on one’s domain name and even helps in sending and receiving emails with them. There are several types of software installed on the web server that allows one’s website to run programs, create and manage databases, display video, etc. One must note that almost any type of computer can function as a web server, but it’s the software that’s on it that makes it a server.

When one goes buying a web hosting, the monthly fees to be paid includes cost for maintenance and upgrading of the server’s hardware and software, the cost of keeping it online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a secure data center with a fast and powerful internet connection, and cost of professional proving these services. It is surprising to know that it is possible to turn one’s home or office computer into a web server if one really desires, but it is just not economical. Therefore it is better to outsource it. There are several kinds of web hosting available which are discussed below:

Kinds of web hosting:

Shared Hosting – Through a shared server one can save a high amount. If one talks about the drawbacks then Spamming and blacklisting from different search engines are the key problems. Such problems arise due to the reason that several sites are assign to one particular IP address. One should demand for a separate IP address for his/her website (on additional monthly charges) to secure the user from such problems.

Dedicated Hosting –Dedicated servers are best for big, highly trafficked websites, which will require large amounts of server resources to run. One of the downsides to shared hosting is that the server’s resources are divided across all the sites it’s hosting and answering page requests for. If you are in a dedicated environment you can better monitor your server resources. The downside is that dedicated servers will run you generally $50 per month or more. Shared hosting can be purchased for as little as 5$ a month. Most small or medium sized businesses will have neither the website size or bandwidth requirements to make dedicated servers cost effective.

Server Co-Location - If one wants to have full control over every aspect of his/her web server, he/she might very well choose to buy one and maintain it himself/herself if he/she is having sufficient knowledge. Still there are possibilities that one is not having enough resources to keep his/her server completely safe from power outages, roof leaks, thieves, unwary employees and other problems and in addition it is not possible for him/her to keep it on the internet on a fast, high-bandwidth connection through out. Thus he/she needs a data center to provide those services for him/her.

Co-location is the center providing facilities like physical security on rental, continuous electrical power and a fast, reliable Internet connection for a server that one owns. However, the data center is not responsible for any of the hardware or software maintenance of a co-located server, rather user his/her self. Thus it is a cheaper alternative to dedicated hosting if one is having the necessary expertise and time to run a web server by own.

There are several web hosts offering UNIX hosting and Windows hosting.

UNIX Hosting

There are several web servers in the world running mostly on UNIX. UNIX is an operating system originally developed for servers and networking. Till now many different versions of UNIX have been written by programmers around the world under the open-source protocol, which means that the code for the operating system is openly available so as to enable programmers to customize and make improvements when and where necessary. The two most popular forms of UNIX are Linux and BSD that comes in several varieties, like Red Hat Linux, Debian, SuSE, and FreeBSD. The best part of UNIX is most of above mentioned versions can be obtained free of cost, making UNIX hosting cheaper for a web host in comparison to other operating systems. Other plus points of UNIX are that UNIX hosting platforms are generally considered to be stable, secure, powerful and fast. That is the reason why most web programming applications can be performed by software that is available for a UNIX platform.

Windows Hosting

Another very popular operating system developed by Microsoft is Windows operating system, Windows Server 2003. Like every thing useful it is having price and can be obtained by purchasing a license, which in turn increases the cost of operation for the web host and usually results in higher hosting prices. This is considered a negative point as compared to UNIX. Plus points of Windows include it is mainly user friendly however it is generally considered to be less powerful and secure than UNIX for operating in a network environment. There are several scripting languages like ASP, ASP.NET, and Cold Fusion, which will only run on a Windows server, as will the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database programs. Thus the above are some of the most popular scripts for certain web programming applications, and if one is thinking of using them while building his/her site, he/she will first definitely need to find a Windows host.

Before searching for a web host, it is essential to know some important terms used in hosting. They are discussed as under:

Storage or Disk space –As one’s website is a collection of files being offered on the Internet for viewing, it is necessary for storing them somewhere for retrieval and take up space. For each and every web server there is a limited amount of hard disk memory, which is divided up and offered to hosting customers. Different package levels are there, so as to enable to pay more for more space and vice versa divide specifically that space up. If one’s website expands its space then the user needs to buy extra space from the web host.

Bandwidth or Data Transfer –One of the crucial parts to verify is bandwidth. There are several sites, which loose their host due to excessive downloads causing budget going beyond their expectations. Occasionally, host even charges in hundreds of dollars for the additional bandwidth. One should confirm about this before dealing with any of the host. Usually, ideal-hosting providers deliver initial bandwidth of 25 to 50 GB to the users.

Uptime –It is a universal truth that if one talks about perfect web servers then they are the one, which would be up, and running and offering web pages to the world round the clock, whole year. But, it is also true that web servers are mere computers, and like any other computer, they may fail or needs repairing or updating. Often web hosts gives 99% uptime guarantee, and if they fail they refund a certain portion of user’s money depending on the amount of excess downtime they experienced.

Traffic Statistics – By traffic statistics we mean those programs that track visitors to one’s website. These programs are capable of telling how many times a user visited one site, how many visitors were unique and how many came back more than once, which pages were most popular, from where the visitors came to one’s site, what search terms they used in the search engines etc. In addition they offer several types of information which are useful for marketing one’s website to a target audience. There are several web hosts offering some sort of traffic statistics software with their hosting packages.

CGI Scripts – There are several web hosts offering a variety of free CGI scripts with their packages. CGI Scripts are the things like hit counters, guest books, form mail programs, message boards, and other programs that enable one website to perform commonly desired functions. Most CGI scripts are written in common programming languages like Perl, PHP or ASP.

Thus one should take care and keep all the above points in mind while selecting a web host.

nmhsjunk asked:


I have no idea of any website languages(HTML, Java, etc.). If I pay for a webhost, can I expect them to do all this dirty work for me, and me just have to worry about the content? Which webhosts do this job the best? Thanks!

Web Hosting asked:


First of all, the question arises, WHAT ARE WEB HOSTS? They are the service provider companies that give place to the net users on their servers that provide space on their servers for internet users. Web hosts provide online systems for internet connectivity and for storing information, image mediums and other internet content to their users. If a company wants web as a medium of conducting business, then selection of web host is a crucial step in any internet marketing strategy.

The user can get various kinds of web hosting services from the market. They are broadly divided and described below:

Free Hosting: Least expensive, however, very restricted when one talk about services and space; though one can began with a free web host when the person is an individual professional or obtained a small business to begun with. For a company looking for rapid growth, boundations like restrictions on advertising, bandwidth and permissible edit sites, can adversely effect.

Shared Hosting: Here the user’s site is placed in the company of several other sites (estimating about hundred), centralized on the same server. However, they give more liberties as compare to free hosts.

Reseller Hosting: Hosting providing the facility of an ample amount of bandwidth and space to an e-business on its account and split the space as per requirement. This is however similar as compare to a shared hosting due to the reason that user’s server is located on the same server related to others. However the user possesses the right to judge about the number of divisions and along with whom he/she has to share.

Hosting Choices providing liberty

One can find total resemblance in the inferences of dedicated hosting and Virtual Private Server. A dedicated hosting however demands more money for its service but the user can enjoy several features in comparison to other hostings discussed earlier. With dedicated hosting, the user not only gets his/her own server but can also indulge in services without many restrictions.

With the help of Virtual private server technology a server gets the potential to host numerous virtual environments. Such environments possess the features of individual stand-alone servers. Though, the inferences are the same, still, a virtual private server hosting is cheaper as compared to others. Along with Collocated hosting, the user can install own server at the data center of the host. For the cost of services generally related to other types of hosting, has to be paid by the user of collocated hosting, making this option quite expensive.

It is obligatory that the user should have an existing website, if he/she wishes to acquire a web-hosting service. Thus after the development of website, the next very important thing would be the selection of web hosting service for the website. Thus one should act very careful while selecting a web hosting service for his/her business.

Web Host asked:


It’s difficult to chose right web hosting service for your web site at the time when there are numerous of web hosting providers all assuring for identical web hosting packages. So its necessary to take care of 3 aspects before starting a web hosting search which are given below. Features required for web hosting Technical requirements for a web site is the most important point to be taken into consideration which includes-

a) Hardware requirements and platform for server

According to your need such as if you want to set up a website that uses programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database, then a need for a web hosting service will arise that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers.

Similarly as for programming languages such as Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix/Linux platform can be helpful. After having these types of requirements in mind one can decide for the best web hosting plan.

b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement

Next technical requirement to be taken care of is disk space and bandwidth requirement, however disk space requirement may not be a big deal if you want to publish website with very less contents. Generally 200 MB to 500MB disk space will be quite enough as hosting requirements. Further for hosting a website with enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, a web hosting providing huge disk space example 500 to 1000 MB will be crucial. In the same manner site traffic estimation can be held responsible for bandwidth requirement .A website that attracts high traffic will tend to consume monthly bandwidth allowance very fast, then in that case one web hosting service that offers huge bandwidth with 40GB to 100 GB per month is needed.

Web hosting service that provides sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth can be opted as per website requirement and that consideration will help not only to reduce costs but also tend to proper disk management.

c) Some other hosting features

Apart from above there are many other hosting features that are to taken into consideration such as Is web hosting provider supports video clips on the website? Is there any plan for setting a virtual store online? Is the host providing e-commerce facilities without charging more and top of all finding number of email accounts provided, number of FTP accounts, web statistic software etc.

Trustworthiness and scalability

If the web-hosting provider is offering reliable server uptime and fast Internet connection then it can be considered as a good host. For selecting an appropriate provider one must look for a web hosting service that guarantee 99% server uptime with high speed internet using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A trustworthy hosting provider invests hugely on high performance servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with fail-over redundancy, backup power generators and firewall software protection in place so as to ensure they fulfill the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.

In the same manner selection would depend upon the hosting service that can ensure hardware facilities that are designed for scalability, so that they can also expand with user’s business. For example if requirement emerges for increasing disk space, bandwidth or number of mySQL databases, there should not emerge any problem and that all can be upgraded easily.

Customer service and support

Last but not the least excellent customer service and support is also important while selecting appropriate host provider. A web hosting provider must provide 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support with highly experienced technicians, so as to ensure timely resolution of any problem. Checking must be made by sending inquiry emails to the web-hosting provider so as to check the responsiveness of the customer support. Generally if a response comes within 24 hours can be considered as indication of acceptance but if no response comes then it is taken as a poor customer service. In world of competition, a web hosting provider must be also equipped with multiple support like Toll-free phone support, 24/7 email support, live chat, FAQ etc.

Apart of above important factors some other minor factors must also brew taken care of while selecting an appropriate web hosting provider like since how long that provider is in business and quantity of customers they hold as these shows the credibility and stability of the company. Cost of web hosting is an important factor also but due to growing competition now their charges have come to as low as US$10 per month and so this major factor needs to be ignored. Thus besides of all most important is that the website hosting requirements are met, website is always accessible with good speed, there is scalability in provider to grow and expand the website and that it also offers best customer support.

Web Hosting asked:


No doubt, making a web site is not a playing sort of job. However, selection of web host is even more serious decision and cannot be taken lightly. Due to presence of several web hosts in the market of various ranges, it is quite difficult for the user to select out the ideal one. For selecting the best host the user should keep several alternatives in his/her hand and user should possess a clear mind set about the expectations from the host. Next are the four guidelines which make the user’s way to select the top web host a lot easier.

1. One should take the help of search engines like Google and Yahoo through keywords like “web host.” If the user carefully analyzes the search engine output then he/she can get the precise idea of types of web hosting options available in the market. Some category of people may think that the top ranking web hosts are no doubt the best, but this is not obligatory. Proper time devotion in the analysation of search results will provide the user an ample amount of hosts for comparison.

2. One should possess the knowledge of working nature of the site. Puzzled!!!! But it is an unavoidable fact that the user should have the information about the objectives of his/her site. If the user requires a site capable of loading a huge amount of large files, then his/her search ends on a host which offers huge amounts of space. Bandwidth is another factor to consider. Another important question arises is whether the site is a personal site, or a commercial site? If the user plans to produce revenue from his/her website, than doing more investment for ample storage space and bandwidth is an advisable thing. If the user possess an intention to make the site a blog and wishes to host it with a service like TypePad, then the user should search for a web host which provides him/her the facility of domain mapping.

3. The user should have a budget in his/her mind. Knowing about the actual budget will not only help the user to make quick decision but also saves a large amount of time. In the condition when a particular web host seems to be very much expensive, then one can rightly move onto the next one without any problem. Moreover, if the user knows about the budget contained with him he/she can easily select the best option (web host) in that particular price range. As few of the web hosts proposes additional space for $20 as compare to others who do for the same price.

4. At the end, the user should ensure that the web host support should match his/her requirement. If the user is building the web site for the first occasion, then he/she may need a host who is eager to advice on the proceedings of building new sites. Some web hosts offers several sorts of help to the inexperienced users. While several others web hosts simply let users with anything they want to do without much indulging in the work.

One of the most crucial things is that, the user should be aware about his/her expectations from the host, while searching for it. The service of search engines like Google and Yahoo makes the search a lot easier, as the user know what he/she is exploring for. It is a matter of fact that, every web host offers something outstanding than others. The user should give priority to a web host which passes in the measurement of simplicity and customer service. One should always keep in mind that severely expensive and top most ranking of the host is not the passport of satisfaction of the customer. The user should begin the journey of searching the web host with a clear, sound and informed mind because then only he/she can reach to the desired speculation.

Web Hosting asked:


One should consider the given below web hosting mistakes and should restrict them from having a seriously negative impact on his/her website.

Mistakes and solutions:

1. Contact Information

One should make sure that his/her web host has contact information available to user 24 hours / day and 7 days / week. This facility provided to the user should be in the form of phone numbers plus e-mail addresses that correspond to the web host domain name. The user should make sure that he/she is dealing with a real company that not only concern about there own business but also of user’s.

2. Excess Bandwidth

It is a serious problem faced by the user that while using a free or cheap quality web host there are more chances that he/she do not possess sufficient amount of bandwidth which could cause problems with user’s website in the later time. Even in the condition when user has to pay a little bit more amount of bucks, it is worth to gain further bandwidth. The user should inquire about this before signing up with a web host.

3. Liberal Disk Space

Several times it happens that user is in false happiness for finding a cheap or free web host and just signs up without even inquiring about the quantity of disk space they provide. A user should ask just one question to him/her, what he/she will do in circumstance when the disk space fills up? One should confirm that his/her host provides him/her liberal amount of disk space or not, if not one should look for an alternative (web host).

4. Web Host Domain Name

One should confirm that the company domain name that it matches with the web host company name or not prior to disclosing his/her credit card information or rather say hosting his/her website with them. On the Internet it is up to the user to choose whether a company is genuine or not, one should verify the domain and company name to locate a combination between them to sustain.

5. Protection

Inspite of the web host and website design, the user must ensure that he/she have secure websites for purchases where people will enter the banking or credit card information. There is no argument on the fact that, if one’s site does not appear to be secure, customers will definitely leave. One must get rid of such circumstances and must go to an extent of the limit to make customers feel secure and convinced buying from his/her own site.

6. Strategy Ahead

One should be prepared for the future and should give a thought in his/her mind about the websites growth. In absence of proper strategy one has to face some severe challenges if one outgrow his/her website, shopping cart, bandwidth etc too quickly. One should adopt a systematic plan for slow, medium, as well as fast growth so that one can remain aware about how to tackle challenges in every sort of situation.

7. Sluggish Server

One should confirm that his/her web page loads within 10 sec. for a 56 k modem. If not, then people will prefer to desert one’s site before the page ever opens rather than waiting. The reason behind it is that, people are looking for instant gratification on the Internet. How to provide information is user’s headache, if cannot the people (customer) will leave on the spot. There is no matter to compromise.

8. Blueprint

One should confirm that his/her host should permit him/her to design the site for ultimate success. Presence of too many policies or regulations regarding the site design will probably influence the sales and the way customers perceive one’s site then should look for another host. There is no scarcity of choices.

9. Checkout

One should prevent several formalities in the checkout process and should ensure that it should be in clear, simple, and to the point format. People prefer to buy their products without giving one a lump of private information. Let the customer do that or plainly make certain fields optional if one is attempting to carry out market research.

10. URL

If one wishes for an ideal reflection of one’s business and services he/she should possess own personal URL. One should not use a free host that provides him/her some kind of space using their URL with some further information at the end of the URL that directs it to him/her. There is no harm in loosing some of the bucks and getting one’s own URL that is unique, simple to process, and says something about one’s company. No doubt, it is going to be most crucial.

stevemdfwtx asked:


Looking for a web host that provides a solid, user-friendly shopping cart that can be integrated with Paypal and is not buggy. Which web hosts do you like for ecommerce? Thanks for your help!

P.S. Experienced web developer looking for a new host for my personal web site after using the same company for many years. Just looking to find out which ecommerce hosts people like these days. Thanks!

Web Hosting asked:


Like toys the business of hosts also booms at the time of vacations of children as entrepreneurs and stay at home parents have more free time and the vacation summer season winds down to the shorter days of winter. There are several hosting companies, which map up special fall campaigns especially intended for such small business startups. However lately there has been different wave around this point of year and it reached in the form of specialized hosting packages for students and parents. Progressively, one can easily see websites for e.g. meant for Blogger, online photos, and resumes, family forums, pod casting, web cams etc. This advance range of innovative technologies has spawned a bigger requirement for web hosting. It is the need of the hour that, someone has to host all of this matter and information. In addition to, if one talk about certain cases for e.g. web cameras, photos, pod casting etc. the hosting needs are in pretty large amount.

If one matters about the seniors and juniors in college they prefer to use simple resume websites with “their name”. Name to help endorse their skills and give potential employees a position to explore the talent in them. These websites are capable to give a lot more amount of information and if they are designed well then they can be a tribute to the professionalism which one is attempting to portray. This can be quite a convenient thing to use on job-hunting websites and to comprise in one’s email signature. One can generally locate a website like this for roughly about $40 per year along with the tools which help the user in easy creation of it.

What generally users hear about all of the time? Certainly, Blogs, blogs, and blogs. Although it is quite certain that, students, teachers, as well as even parents love to blog about their education experience from college down to elementary school. In the recent era, Blog websites have become really easy in the purpose of setup and several other extremely full-featured ones are free! Another important feature of these websites is that they provide the facility of a forum to anyone to express their views and experiences, and education, which seems to be a subject, which people adore to share about.

Which can be probably the next catchphrase after blogging that users use to talk about? It is off-course Pod casting; which is said to be an art of taking a blog to the spoken level. Through this people can record anything they wish and upload it to a pod casting website for the entire world to listen to it. It is extremely fashionable for people to create virtual tours of things like museums and universities for people for the purpose of downloading and to walk around with in their ipod. Or it can simply be meant for recording of one’s personal views for the entire world to listen to it.

Can one tell, what do parents who like to see their child’s classroom and voyeuristic college kids have in common? The answer is: Web cams. Another step up from blogging and pod casting one’s thoughts and voice is in fact filming it himself/herself. Web cams are looking their way in to every form of places and the back to school season seems to incite a further enhancement. Schools to allow parents to view their child are using web cams; they are being applied around campuses and neighborhoods for safety purposes, and also by parents and children to view each other separated due to division of distance.

A further smaller type of website that one has even heard of is called Family forum boards. There are several families that are scattered as nuclear with multiple kids in multiple colleges across the country, a forum board proposes a handy way for everyone to communicate to each other on their own time and keep up with all of the conversations of their family. Several hosting companies offer free forum boards along with their hosting plans and these are quite convenient to install and setup. If one is looking for a web hosting company with an auto-installer script, such as Fantastico, he/she will be amazed at how easy it is to get started.

If one talks about the last category of back to school website then the name which comes to the mind are online photo albums. From the time when the propagation of digital cameras came into existence people are now turning to online photo albums as a reliable location to store their family treasures. This even provides opportunity to user’s far away college student to post pictures of his/her dorm room for the extended family to see as well as for the family to post pictures of the fair period they are having. No doubt a picture possess worth thousand words appeal. There is presence of web hosting companies, which have specialization for this task which is termed as Image hosting. If one types “image web hosting” into any major search engine, he/she will find the list of all the companies and then he/she can choose from as desired. Not only that there are several web hosts offering free online photo album scripts that one can install. In case the hosts advertise an auto installer like Fantastico, then the install and setup is done for the user by them only.

Few last months have seen increased web hosting demand, but with advanced technology now the demand for specialty hosting during is increasing i.e. the fall that caters to students, parents, and friends. Thus the above mentioned are some specialty hosting needs but there are surely many more and people are using these in order to increase their educational experience and for reducing the distance between the family and friends which sometimes occur depending upon circumstances.