choosing a web host
ReggaeDooood asked:


Hi,

I would like a web hosting plan that supplys me with the below:

5 MySql databases
SSL
PHP Support
PhpMyAdmin
3000MB data transfer
1GB storage space
Webmail
Mail Auto responders
CGI

I am willing to spend upto £10 a month…….

Thanks in advance :-)

web hosting
Web Hosting asked:


Web Hosting:

What to do:

One should trace the following tips to end the search on a dependable host:

Research:

Going through the reviews and through investigation about the concern host can assist a lot. Questions like, what is the experience in the sector? Where is Data center location? What is the Customer and employee strength? All these questions need satisfactory answers.

Contact Support:

One should estimate the response time by asking few easy questions before dealing to a concern host.

Knowledge about own necessities:

User should concern about both sides of the coins. Does he/she require ample amount of space and bandwidth or not. If reply is NO! One should not waste valuable money on it. If the reply is YES! One should heir a host from whom one can purchase enough space to handle the required traffic.

Good Backup Plan: is must

An important factor to consider by the user is for the backup plan. Several hosts lag behind in this sector. They even don’t provide, if provide it could be weeks or even months old. Good backups can prevent user from frequent downtimes and data loss. If one’s host is unable to fulfill this criterion, one should look for another alternative.

Web Hosting:

What not to do:

Following mistakes can adversely affect user’s strategies:

Do not measure On Price basis:

Only price cannot be absolute criteria to get a dependable host. Cheap hosting providers can also be useful if one can explore the right one. One cannot deny the fact that; high price can provide good service. For that, one should remain ready to pay, at least .50 cents for every gigabyte of bandwidth for average reliability and three or rather four times that if one desires supreme quality hosting.

Purchasing Hosting from an Auction Site:

It is not like that one cannot search ideal hosting from an auction site, but there is rare chance of coin to lie on positive side. It happens usually when the company does not even operate a web site to market their services.

Trusting Customer Testimonials:

Several testimonials are unreliable. Often the host in the testimonials displays the contact information and those lists are quite trustworthy as well but one should not rely on them fully.

Free Domain with Hosting

It is advisable to keep one’s domain separate from his/her hosting company. There are several hosts offering free domains with their hosting plans. As long as user is having registered domain, this procedure is fine. If the provider registers to his/her name and only lets user “borrow” it, then the user will always face the risk of holding his/her own domain hostage. So one should always think properly before taking any step.

Aug
11
web hosting
Web Hosting asked:


As in this world nothing is for free; same is with free web hosting. In case of free web hosting there is another dark side undisclosed which hampers one’s chances of becoming successful. However, if one knows about these dirty secrets, he/she will be prepared and better able to handle any possible problems before they would actually arise.

The following are some of the secrets which one should know before selecting a web host:-

1. Absence of Experience

There are several budget web hosts on the web that have not been around for very long and have little or even no experience at all. The final thing which the user is supposed to do is to sign up with a company that is brand new and inexperienced and be component of their learning curve. Instead, one should find a web host that possess experience of several years and is happy to outline the year they started, their expansion, and entire experience level.

2. 24/7 Support

In case a company is searching for a budget web host and is willing to save much costs. It is for sure that the cost which the company is trying to save will be less in comparison to the loss which it has to suffer due to poor support afterwards. Thus it is quite common that some budget web hosts do not offer any sort of information about their level of support, but some argue to offer 24/7 support but in real sense don’t. Prior to signing any agreement, with a budget web host, he/she should make sure that whether the host response the call at 3 a.m. on weekdays or anytime on weekends or not. Through the conclusion whether the phone is answered or not will be a very good sign as to whether one should sign up with them or keep finding.

3. Service Level Agreement

One should study the service level agreement that is provided by the budget web host. If the budget web host do not have, one then definitely move on, and if it is not a sturdy agreement that outlines precisely what will happen and the class of service the user will get in the event of a problem. The actual cause for this is because all web hosts will run into a problem at several places and one needs to know how that will be handled and how it will affect him/her before inflowing into the agreement.

4. No sole hosts

A further dirty little secret is many budget web hosts companies are not exclusively web host companies but they do offer range of other businesses or products as well. One definitely would not like to be in a situation to work with anyone who is in reality not a real web host rather one wishes a web host that only concentrate on web hosting nothing else. One should ask without hesitation before signing up any agreements or giving credit card numbers, what kind of business they are involved in and from which area their revenue comes from. This will help one to come to a conclusion about whether or not this is the web host meant for him/her or not.

This is not the end of dirty secrets; rather there are several others which are swept under the carpet in regards to the budget web hosting business. The best things one can do is to simply ask lot of questions, do a little investigation, and use the answers which one finds to help in making his/her own decision.

web hosting
Web Host asked:


Due to Various inefficiencies of Old Web Hosting provider like poor technical support, down web server, inability of old provider to met with your requirements, expensive web hosting service, an Online Business owner decided to go for a new Web Hosting provider. Because of all above-mentioned and many more not in the list you would opt for new web hosting service. So the next step is to transfer your web site from current web host to new web host which can be done by following the under mentioned steps. Transferring of Schedule For transferring the old web hosting, planning should be done in advance, atleast one month before so as to ensure smooth transfer, as transferring in less than one month can led to inaccessibility of your web site.

Registering new web hosting service.

Once the above step is complete, user must go for a new web hosting service and must sign it accordingly within 24 hours so as to enable new account earliest.

Taking Files Backup.

As soon as you created a new web hosting account, you should take back up of all your web files for the new provider. Generally you already have all files of your web site on your local computer still it is beneficial to backup all your files from old web server. Further including HTML files, backup of any script file, database file and even of server logs file should be taken. Thereafter create a directory structure similar to directory structure on web server and then load the file in their respective directory.

Uploading of files

You will receive a notification email from your new web-hosting provider after the notification of your new web hosting account. Information needed to set up a website including FTP server information all will be provided within that email. With the help of that FTP information user can now FTP his new web-hosting server and can upload all his files. First the user should create a directory structure and then can upload all his files in their respective directories. User can also install any script file or databases if used in his website and also should setup his email accounts with the help of administration panel.

After finishing of uploading of all the files and installation of script files or databases temporary URL can be used to test the new site. This temporary URL can be obtained from through notification email from new web hosting provider.

Testing of new website

The new website can be tested online by using temporarily URL directory. As different web hosting server require different server environment to work, that’s why user needs to verify all the scripts like CGI, Perl if they are working as per the requirement or not. Further all the hyperlinks should be tested in the normal web pages so as to confirm that no broken links are there. Your website hosted on the old web hosting provider is continued to be operational, even when you are testing through the temporary URL directory. Transferring of domain name After finishing of testing new website on the temporary URL and verification of its perfect execution, next step is to contact the new domain name registrar so as to change the old domain name server to point the new DNS of the web hosting provider. There after the user will get DNS information through email after he finishes the successful registration with new web hosting provider and also would get the information from website of his new web hosting provider. The purpose of Domain name servers is to control how to resolve the domain name. Commonly the domain names are in following format:

NS1.THE-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COM

NS2.THE-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COM

Some domain name registrar requires the IP addresses of the DNS. In this case you have to provide the IP addresses of your new DNS. For example:

NS1: 216.193.194.212

NS2: 216.193.207.106

DNS record to change and propagate through all the WHOIS servers takes typically 24 to 72 hours. Whois tools such as whois.com can be use on Internet to monitor the status of DNS transfer. New DNS will be displayed once the transfer is complete. Even minor modifications are possible like the user can upload his own file or picture to the new web-hosting server. When the user checks his homepage through the normal domain name he can notice the new home page, which makes sure that transfer of DNS is successful. Final Testing Now, your website on the new web hosting provider is officially transferred and online. You should repeat all the tests to ensure it is fully functional.Thereafter you can go ahead to terminate your old web hosting account after the final confirmation is received.