How to choose a Web Hosting Provider! Hostgator vs. Godaddy.

I just went through the process of choosing a web hosting provider. Or should I say Blog Hosting provider. I have been with Godaddy for years and was a happy customer. Then I started blogging using a Word Press blog. Things weren’t going smoothly with Godaddy. At times my blog pages were coming up blank and the load time was very slow. Then when I introduced Firepow to automate my blogging business it got even more complicated. As Firepow is optimized for Hostgator.

I quickly learned about cpanel hosting interface vs. Godaddy’s proprietary interface. The standard is cpanel which is an interface that one can learn to navigate fairly quickly. Plus, most training you will find online provides cpanel instruction. An easy to use hosting control panel is very important when you are creating blogs and websites. Hostgator, also provides the fantastico hosting interface which I haven’t tried yet.

Then there is sql database creation. Godaddy takes a different approach. One cannot just simply point to “localhost” for the location of the database with Godaddy. You need to jump through hoops to find the location. Hostgator provided excellent support and imported my sql database which was a great help in moving my blogs to their system.

It would require a rather long article to provide all the details of the differences between the 2 services. Plus, folks would need to familiarize themselves with terms like: cpanel hosting, web hosts,blog,email hosting, shared hosting, reseller hosting, domain hosting, dedicated servers, dedicated hosting,ftp hosting,domain name hosting,hosting php,ecommerce hosting etc.I would suggest familiarizing yourself with these terms to gain a better understanding of the web and blog hosting environments.

The quick and dirty based on my experience is that Godaddy is great for domain name registration and Hostgator is great for a reliable hosting company. Hostgator has hosting plans from $4.95 per month. It really is not as problem to domain host with one company and use a different company’s hosting server. Just simply point the DS nameservers to the location that your blog or website is hosted at. The hosting provider will provide you with detailed instructions as to how this works.

If you visit the site you will find a 20 percent off coupon among other deals. There are links to domain registration and web hosting plans. It is a great place to start for hosting services and will provided you cheap webhosting. Additionally, if you use Hostgator as your hosting service, I would pay for at least a year in advance which provides even more savings. Hostgator really is a great blog webhost. Additionally if you want to automate your blogging business stop over at and read the article on Firepow.

Contact me for a $30.00 savings.

How to Pick the Best Hosting Provider – Key Things You Really Should Know

One of the most important decisions that any business that would like to have an online presence makes is choosing the best hosting provider. These days, there are plenty of web hosting providers around – so how do you go about choosing the best one for your requirements?

Like any industry these days, there are always going to be providers that are trustworthy and reliable, while some are just a pure nightmare. In addition, with many great sales people and marketing campaigns out there – how do you separate the good webhosting companies from the bad companies? As a result, it can be a difficult task to figure out which web host is the best.

Below are some ideas on what you should be looking for when choosing your web host:

Disk Space: A web host service provider will assign you a particular amount of space on their server. Beware of companies who claim they provide unlimited amounts of disk or web space, because there are usually hidden terms and conditions related to it, or they just do not live up to their promises. You will need to make sure that you have enough space for your business requirements. Some companies may just need a simple website, while other ‘heavier’ websites such as e-commerce websites or those which use plenty of graphics and videos would need much more space.

Data Transfer: Also known as bandwidth, you need to ensure that your web hosting provider will provide you with enough bandwidth for fast and efficient data transfer.

Speed, Reliability and Security: These 3 issues are very important for the success of any online business. After all, you will need to ensure that people can access your website fast otherwise it will be frustrating to use. It is important that it’s both reliable and secure, and that customer details will not be easily hacked into or leaked. As a result, you should choose a reliable web hosting service to ensure that this will not happen. You may be wondering how you are supposed to choose the right web host that fulfills all these 3 categories. In this case, you should consider looking for feedback from friends or family members who may be familiar with web hosting providers.

Support: Can you imagine living with a web hosting provider that provides terrible customer service? Some companies do provide basic 24/7 support, however more technical issues would require a few days to investigate. Do you prefer talking on the telephone to someone, typing over live chat, or would you prefer email contact? Some companies do provide all three, but smaller companies may only provide one or two contact options. If you need 24/7 technical support, you would most likely need to pay a bit more due to the cost of labor.

Price: The pricing plan is one of the major factors when choosing a web hosting provider. It is not necessarily true that more expensive web hosting providers are the best. In fact, many of the smaller web hosting providers are just as good as the bigger companies.

Know Your Web Hosting Limits

I think that one of the more common mistakes that people have been making in regards to the whole web hosting is that they are pretty much unsure of what goes into this and what they need. After all, hosting in itself is a pretty simple and basic operation, and most of the time, we are quite divorced from it at some point or another, and what we need to realise is how you are going to be able to know what to get, and what to spend. While it is quite simple to just leave things to the companies you are going to be approaching to do this for you, i think knowing what you need is a good thing and a good place to start instead of floundering all over the place and expecting to get what you came for. Most of the time people do not remember that these companies are out there to make money off of you, and what may seem like advice might be a little more than that if you know what I mean. All in all, these are just some of the things you might want to be aware of at the end of the day.

Now, when we are talking about web hosting limits, what we are really saying is what you are going to be using the hosting for. Now, if you are just going to need this whole thing just to blog about and post some photos, then your broadband needs are going to be pretty on the low side, and this also means that you are not going to need some of the more advanced features out there. Knowing this is really important, it is really important to also note that some of the features that you think are working for you might not be at the end of the day. Do not go crazy on the small things that might seem useful at first but of course, at the end of the day, might not have any use for you at all. Being in the all out would not benefit because your pocket is the one that is going to be hurting at the end of the day, and this means that going broke on your web hosting is not going to be the one that is the most beneficial to you. Know your limits and if you need a lot of bandwidth, know how much you need and what kinds of buffer levels are important to you as well.

These are some of the things that will be cropping up when you are thinking about how you are going to fully utilise the idea of the web hosting compound, and how you are going to test those limits so that you do not go above and beyond what you need at the end of the day, and how you are going to do this is basically by knowing your own needs online.

Dedicated Hosting Provides Freedom to Handle Your Web Server Independently

The growing use of Internet and how important it is for online business to accept a web attendance these days, a lot of people are awake of Website hosting and why it is required. For individual business person and other lot of small businesses, a shared hosting is usually comfortable, which keep hosting coast low. But whenever an online business reaches at certain level web traffic, size, and popularity, a dedicated server is the great way to move forward that is really awesome. The term of dedicated servers is as simple as you think, a web server computer that allotted to individual Website. When a sever is dedicated, it means that all the computing resources of that web server is only assigned to one unique user.

Mostly the dedicated hosting server is leased or purchased by the customers who owns the Website state hosted. Usually, all these special servers are keep inside the data center premises, which as well gives extra layer of services, such as environmental control, back up power systems, security and the required connection to the Internet. If an online business required some specific requirements, then it is the right time to switch on dedicated servers. Like whenever the demand for system security might be increase, as well to improve the slow performance or if there is need for customization of scripts. When these kinds of needs come up, other web server hosting packages are usually not sufficient for it.

Dedicated server hosting is as well a feasible option to purchasing a powerful and scalable server in house and any other software that might be require. The straight out purchase of such powerful web servers can be very primary intensive and the cost can be intense for new arising company, even if they are planning for fundamental growth and expansion. Rather, dedicated servers provided by dedicated hosting services offers an option that gives the computing power required for a successful Website that is in demand, at specific cost that easier to handle.

Secondary benefit of using dedicated hosting is that the web server can assembled to the requirements of the organization that holds and operates the Website. The server devoted only for the use of that specific organization and the organization is capable to manage totally, in position of the system administration and application use. And in other side the dedicated hosting service provider is responsible for maintaining the all hardware and the network connectivity. Mostly, it means that there are technical staff team available at round the clock to ensure, that web servers are always active. Make sure the hosting company that you select for dedicated hosting have its own fully managed data centers Services . Nowadays you will get this service in affordable cost, so it is much better to maintain web server, specially when you are newish in web hosting field.

Essential Features of Web Hosting

Anyone that wants to be seen on the Internet needs to have a website. There are literally thousands of web hosts to choose from so finding the right web hosting packages can be a confusing process, especially if you are new to web hosting. This series of articles will assist you in sorting out all the information available and give you the confidence to make the best decision about choosing reliable web hosting. You will find that web hosting packages can vary in pricing as well as the features they offer
such as the amount of disk space and bandwidth available, data transfers, number of domains and email boxes, privacy and security settings, website design and marketing tools, technical support and guaranteed uptime. Knowing what your requirements are is essential to making a smart choice.

Let’s look at the features that are essential to reliable web hosting:
1.DISK SPACE / STORAGE A web hosting account has an allotment of disk/storage space that you rent on a server. The amount of storage will include all of the content of your web pages, any graphic or audiovisual content you may use on those pages, any files that are available for visitors to download and any space that you may use for emails. You will also need to allow space for the various log files that are enerated by the server that keeps track of visitors to your site and what pages they click on. You may want to choose a package with additional disk space so as you add more content such as pictures, music, videos or downloadable files that require more disk space, there are no additional costs. Databases are usually calculated separately from your disk/storage space allocated, so check with your web host to see what their policy covers.

2.DATA TRANSFER / BANDWIDTH These two functions are an important factor when choosing reliable web hosting. They are similar but different aspects of the same process that work hand in hand.

Data transfer is how much data is being transferred on a monthly basis. Your website may not be accessible the less data transfer that is allocated on a monthly basis. Going over your allocated limit can result in a fee or even a temporary shutdown of your website. Be sure to choose a plan with more data transfer than your current needs to allow for additional traffic and content.

Bandwidth is how much data can be transferred at one time. The less bandwidth you are allocated, the slower your website takes to load regardless of the speed of the visitors connection. Higher bandwidth is expensive because it ties up the servers resources and can affect the performance of other customer sites on the server. An important factor to consider when choosing a web host is the fact that they can terminate your Domain name and close the account without refund.

3.DOMAIN NAME The Domain name is your unique name and address on the Worldwide Web. Domain registration is the process that an individual or a company secures a website domain, such as www.yoursite.com. Once you have completed domain registration, the domain name becomes yours for a specified period of time, usually one year. You must renew you domain name before your registration expires, or the domain reverts back to being available to the general public. Be sure
that you own your domain name. Some web hosts maintain control of the domains they register so its important that you retain the option to transfer the domain to another registrar. You should read the “Terms and Conditions” regarding maintaining your privacy and any additional fees to transfer to your domain to another registrar.

4.DEDICATED VS. SHARED IP ADDRESS An Internet Protocol address, or better known as an IP address, is the numerical address of the website that tells other computers where to find the server host and your domain on the Internet.

There are advantages to having a dedicated IP address vs. a shared IP address which is explained in the next section.

Dedicated IP Address means that your site is the only one on the Internet using that IP address number. The advantages of having a dedicated IP address are that you can get your site better SEO (search engine optimization) ratings which make your website more visible and easier to find; there are better security and privacy options. A Private SSL Certificate was created to confirm the identity of a website or server and ensure secure transactions between web servers and browsers. In order to keep clients information secure, a Private SSL Certificate is required for ECommerce websites that accept online credit card payments.

Shared IP Address means there could be hundreds of websites sharing one server that share a single IP address. Shared IP addresses make it easier for hosting companies to manage and maintain their servers and offer this feature at a lower cost. The downside to this feature is if other websites sharing your IP address are banned or blacklisted due to spamming or scamming, their actions directly affect your website. Your website could disappear from the search engines and your email could be blocked by Internet Service Providers (ISP). A Shared SSL Certificate gives you the benefits of a SSL Certificate at a lower cost and still provides a secure URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Many Ecommerce websites provide Shared SSL to their business clients.

5.EMAIL FEATURES Email hosting offers a variety of features for both individuals and businesses. Some of the features offered are customized email addresses, import/export your address book, unlimited storage, webmail accessible from your mobile phone or PDA, calendar alerts, mail forwarding, auto responders, email filters that protect you from viruses and spam, phone and email tech support.

6.GUARANTEED UPTIME This is one of the most important features of a reliable web hosting provider. Guaranteed uptime means your website is guaranteed to be up at least 99.9% of the time and available to visitors. When your website is unavailable, traffic and potential clients will be drawn to your competitors sites and ultimately lost sales. This guarantee should include network uptime, server uptime, web server and service uptime as well as 24/7 support.

7.CONTROL PANEL FEATURES The most important job that a website owner has is creating and management of the website(s) and its content. The C-Panel features the tools for uploading and managing web pages, managing domains, subdomains, FTP accounts, creating parked domains, add-on domains, protecting your directories, redirecting visitors to another location, website statistics, back up data, virus protection and spam filters, the tools to keep your privacy and security.

8.PRIVACY & SECURITY The security of your communications such as unauthorized or sensitive data are a huge concern. Some of the security tools that a web host may include are SSL secure servers, SSL certificates, high quality software that can prevent other websites from directly accessing your databases and files, anti-virus protection, reliable authentication, secure payment processing, firewall protection, use of strong passwords, email encryption and strict privacy policies.

9.TECH SUPPORT A reliable web hosting provider should have technical support available 24/7. Get a quick reply to your support ticket should any issues arise and getting instant support via a live chat service or telephone support.

10.WEBSITE BUILDING TOOLS Even if you have no prior knowledge or experience, Website building tools are often offered as part of a web hosting package. The more advanced website building tools teach you how to add a photo album, guestbook, ads, newsletters, blogs, FAQ module, visitor tracker, banner rotator, auto installer software for blogs, forums, galleries and much more.

For more information about web hosting services, plan options as well as a Free Membership for access to a huge selection of free products, software and marketing tools worth thousands of dollars. So make your web presence stand out, no matter what your experience level. Don’t miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime, visit .